For Laura McGranaghan: Get better!
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August 26 UPDATE!
She is out of ICU, into a room at the hospital. There has been a little physical therapy. She probably will be transferred to North Kansas City soon. I've added stuff to the site, and posted more pictures. Now you can leave a message in the guestbook, as well as get on the mailing list for updates to this site.
August 24 UPDATE!
I got pics from Laura's dad via email. 5 of the pics are her at market in the week before the accident. I think I like these pics because the 5 of them together kinda show her talking to the bird in voices and laughing as she does. Also on the page is one more of Kip and me beside her bedside, as well as Kip, Brandy and me in the waiting room.
I think I wrote a pretty good synopsis to Bekah, but I will fill in more so whoever doesn't know what happened to her can get a pretty detailed explanation. Laura asked her dad (Bob) to photograph events, and in turn, Bob asked me to get it and share it with people.
This, for the main part, was written Monday, August 23, 2004, at 5pm.
For updates I will also post date and times of updates.
I believe this is all accurate. If not, correct me, I will change it.
Laura McGranaghan was in a car accident Wednesday, August 18th. Highway patrol says the car rolled at least 7 times, and no one found her (supposedly) for 30 minutes. Her car was definitely a mess, resting on the passenger side. She crawled out through the moon roof, wriggling out of her seat belt because it wouldn't unlatch. Many scratches, bruises on her.
She had 8 hours of surgery Saturday. She had her T12 vertebra removed; it was blocking about 30% of the spinal column. They fused T11 and L1, the ones above and below, using a cage and collagen and pieces of bones from her ribs, so she will be limited a little in mobility, because the fused ones won't bend as well as the three would individually, but no paralysis. To do the operation they had to collapse a lung, move the diaphragm, and go in through both the front and the back to get to it, that's a major part of the pain, as well as the back. To keep her back in position while the vertebrae fuse and grow strong, she has to wear a back brace anywhere from 3 months to a year.
They'll probably move her out of ICU sometime soon, to a regular hospital room, and then go to a rehabilitation center in Kansas City, where she'll spend who knows how long there. She wasn't too bad yesterday when I saw her, mainly weak, in pain, exhausted, and she should be back on the upswing now.
They are getting her into physical therapy today, so that she can start that process.
A lot of people there Saturday, between family and friends, Tom, Amanda, Robbie, Brandy, Jessie and I were there Saturday, Kip came Sunday, Brandy and Robbie live in Columbia so they are at the hospital daily.
I'm in Chicago, so I will be detached a little from news and everything, but what I do know I will try to add updates.
I will try to keep this updated, there is a few more pics I don't have that I want to go on here (especially Laura and the parrots, this was before the accident) as well as a story by Amanda Harper, and stories from visiting with her.
If there is anything you would like to add, please feel free to e-mail me.
Go to pics.