Humpty gets repaired

A lot of us might think our kids (or someone else in our lives) have a hole in their heads, well for those of you who have followed my reports of injuries suffered by a young man from southeastern, B.C. in an ATV accident, I am glad to say the literal hole in Bryce Bostock’s skull has been patched.

Tuesday, in a two hour operation, doctors at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary replaced a slab of skull, roughly the size of your palm, removed about four weeks ago from the left side of Bryce’s head so his badly swollen brain had room to expand, in hopes of preventing serious damage.

And so far, the whole process appears to have worked, amazingly well. The doctors opened his skull during emergency surgery September 5, kept the bone plate preserved somehow, and Tuesday – 24 days later -  put it back into place, pinned it, and sowed up his scalp.

Late Tuesday afternoon he was sitting up in bed, visiting with his parents and looking for food. He’s walking and talking, in good spirits, able to laugh, anxious to get home, and doesn’t appear to have suffered any permanent damage, although he’s still in rehab most days to get all his motor skills fine tuned. He was able to beat his Grandma Marg at multiple games of crib this week, so either she is a really lousy player, or his head is working quite well.

I know everyone is just thrilled for Bryce and his family that this tragic event continues to grow toward such a very positive outcome. And I think many of us who have watched this drama have been equally impressed at how well the B.C./Alberta and Canadian medical system has worked.

Within two or three hours from the time the accident occurred in a relatively remote area of the BC Rockies, he was undergoing emergency surgery in a major hospital 500 kilometres away, with a massive team of doctors and nurses providing treatment, and since then has just had such excellent care. The system ain’t perfect, and maybe in some cases it has failed those who need it, but boy it would be hard to be critical of how well it so far has worked to pull Bryce through this near-death experience.

Thank God for the vision of Tommy Douglas who couldn’t have known in 1961, when universal health care was introduced, how important it would be 50-years later to a 16-year-old kid from Cranbrook. The system may be a bit weak in satisfying Bryce’s veracious appetite, but Pizza Hut can look after that.

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