Archive for July, 2005

July 24, 2005

July 24, 2005 | Updates

Tom asked me to post this to the site yesterday, but I posted it in the wrong place. So it is duplicated on the message board. Sorry for that.Tell everybody thanks for the prayers and help. Teresa cried when Jon mentioned the guys at the shop were going to donate labor to help with the fence around the canal that we had put off because it will be so expensive. What a great thing to do. You are all such good people! We are blessed in soooo many ways. We have had several several miracles thus far and are in very very very good spirits. The Lord has blessed us, and blessed us, and is continuing to bless us. After having been submerged for 20 min and dead when finaly pulled out, then still no heart beat or breath for a complete 20 min to the hospital, for a total of 40- 45 min, he should not even be alive! Then after they were flabergasted that he lived, they told us he would be more than likley brain dead. As of now he is absolutley NOT! We still don’t know the outcome of his brain trauma, but he is saying small amounts of slured words already, slowley watching small bits of tv, and focusing on us as his parents. WOW!! We could not be in better spirts. God is merciful! When looking for him in what seemed like an endless river of very fast paced water, I prayed my guts out hoping for an answer, nothing came to me, nothing @ all. I was lost and confused, I did not know where to look! but I looked and looked. We are not perfect in any way, in fact far from it most of the time, but I am soo glad we have been trying so hard to live the gospel standards, or I know we would not be blessed like this. It is Faith along with obedience that is the only things we as mortal people need. Nothing else matters in life but thoes 2 principles. Faith with out works is dead but faith and obedience is extreemley powerful. It is those prayers I made saying…my God my God that lead the search and rescue to him so fast. Remember it took them minutes to get there and they found him quicly about a block to a block and a half away from the house. With the river as fast as it was, they should NOT have found him for hours. That is something I cannot think of!
Thanks again for all you all have done, it is that faith and obedience from ALL of you, that has blessed us and Samuel from that point. We will never forget all the support we have recieved. Everytime I think of how blessed we are I just have to grin!!! Love Tom

July 23, 2005

July 23, 2005 | Updates

Samuel was very restless last night, so they gave him something to help him sleep. He woke this morning around 9 am and was half-awake and attempting to look around for about 15 minutes. He smiled a few times and seemed to somewhat understand what we were saying to him. He even laughed for his dad at one point. It was very nice to see. Last night, he also tried to reached for his blanket as I held it out for him. We are so grateful to see those improvements.The MRI results are back, but we have not been able to get a neurologist to come and explain the results to us. One doctor did confirm that Samuel did sustain injury to the basal ganglia portion of his brain. (A portion of the brain stem, if I understand correctly.) But he said he had not studied that portion of the brain since his college days and really couldn’t give us an idea of what that might mean. The rest of his brain looked fine.

I have looked a little on the internet trying to find out what this diagnosis means and have only found that impairments to that part of the brain can cause difficulties with speech and movement and sometimes cognition and emotion. They can also cause disorders such as Cerebral Palsey and Parkinsons Disease. But I do not know to what extent or if these things can be remedied with medication or therapy. They have ordered him physical, speech and occupational therapy. So we will just have to wait and see what they tell us later on.

We thank you all again for you support and ask you again to continue your prayers that Samuel might be blessed to fully recover from this trauma he has experienced.

As a final note, we met the young man that pulled Samuel from the water. He is a highway patrolman. He found Samuel about 1 1/2 blocks from our home under the water and under a bunch of sticks and weeds. His sock was caught on the sticks. This officer had received the 911 call when he was in Wellsville. He had made the trip to Paradise in about 8 minutes and was told as soon as he arrived that they were moving the search down a block. It only took him about 15 seconds to spot Samuel, but he is unsure as to how he even saw him or why he even focused in that direction because Samuel was very hidden beneath the debris.

We thank this young man for saving our little boy’s life along with everyone else that performed CPR and other medical interventions to bring his little body back to life and to the point he is to now. We are so very blessed.

Thank you again! Please continue to keep us in your prayers. They are very much needed.

Love,
Tom, Teresa & little baby Samuel

July 22, 2005

July 22, 2005 | Updates

We left Samuel last night at about 11 pm after they had given him some medication to sleep. We came back this morning at about 8:30 am and he was just waking up. They said he slept well last night which is a great blessing. As he started squirming this morning, Tom asked him if he wanted to get up and he arched his back and nearly turned over! So we sat him up and he opend his eyes and tried to focus on us for the longest amount of time since the accident. Tom rocked him for a while and he was restless so we asked him if he wanted to watch TV. He opened his eyes about 4 times and tried to turn to the TV and watch it. It’s much improvement over yesterday and we are very excited about it.Physically, he is doing very, very well. He is neurologically normal - can move all his limbs and his body just fine and is doing some purposful movements - like trying to pinch the nurse when she washes his face! His lungs are good and there is no indication of swelling in his brain so far.

They will do an MRI on him this afternoon and that will tell them a lot about his brain and hopefully get him cleared to have the neck brace that has been bothering him so badly removed. (That was placed on him because no adult witnessed his actual fall into the canal and they don’t know if maybe he received trama to his neck.)

We will update as soon as we hear about the MRI. We are hoping the news will be very good, but if it’s not, we are totally prepared to continue in faith that he will be made whole again - the doctors have been very wrong before.

What we mostly need now is prayers and fasting. If you missed the fast we held last night, don’t let that keep you from fasting today or tomorrow or whenever it’s possible for you to. We know that fasting and prayers will be answered and that Samuel is absolutely in the hands of God and that miracles do happen in our day. The power of the priesthood is AMAZING! We couldn’t be more blessed.

We love you all and know at this point that estimating a thousand people were praying for him is a low, low estimate. There are so many of you and you ARE making a difference in this little boy’s life! We thank you and thank God for all that we are receiving! Please keep those prayers coming. Thanks and all our love, Tom & Teresa & little baby Samuel

July 21, 2005

July 21, 2005 | Updates

Dear friends and family,Everyone has been so concerned about our precious little Samuel, we thought the best way to keep you all updated with his progress would through this program. Spread the word that we’re doing this…Kay? If anyone want’s to get on our list, tell them to visit www.carepages.com and type in SamuelJewkes with no spaces. It will ask them to register and you should be able to get in. Hopefully someone will update this page as things happen, or any new news. If it isn’t updated there probably isn’t any new news.First, some don’t even know that about 6:30 he fell into the canal Tuesday night. Struggling for his life, after calling down from heaven the power of the Priesthood to administer to him, he was life-flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital that night. Some haven’t seen the canal, and are wondering what it’s like, so we’ve included some pictures.Here’s the update. Yesterday morning the doctor told Tom and Teresa that, without a miracle, it’ not likely he will live, and if he does, he will probably be a vegetable. Then, a couple of hours later, while his brother, Tanner (whom we were tending) was talking to his mother on the phone, Sam opened his eyes!!! And he remained awake, bouncing from kicking and fighting the situation, to sweetly looking from one person talking to him, to another… to his eyes kind of rolling, like he couldn’t focus, to even a smile at his dad when he pretended that he was going to him once…. resting only a little. Teresa told us that the’re sedating him this moring so he’ll get some rest!When the doctor who’d told them the bad news in the morning, came in to his room later in the day (eating some hard candy) and saw what was happening, she was so surprized that she chipped her tooth (and had to go to the dentist). She said that this WAS a miracle!!!!

With the possiblitiy though, of his lungs filling with fluid and his brain swelling, he’s still not out of danger! Those could be life threatening. And of course, we won’t know about brain damage until he gets up and around so we can abserve him. But, we are, indeed much more hopeful today than we were yesterday morning!

EVERYONE’S been asking what you can do to help. Tom and Teresa have had swelling hearts of gratitude for such dear, caring friends!!! Teresa counted up and figures that there are around a thousand of you who are praying for our sweet little Samuel!!! (and I doubt that’s counting all of our friends!!!) That’s quite a bit of love and prayers for one little guy!!! In answer to all your questions because you want to help so badly, here are some things we can do:

1. You are invited to join our family in a fast for Samuel. These united fasting and prayers of so many loved ones will begin tonight (Thursday), and end tomorrow for lunch. If you’re able, it would be deeply appreciated.

2. We need someone to take some needed items to Tom and Teresa at the Primary Children’s Hospital.

We thank you all so very much!!! What a WONDERFUL LIFE!!! Even through trials… with the gospel, and so many caring family and friends!!!

All our love,
Grampa and Gramma Jewkes
Uncle Grant and Aunt Carole
Grant and Carole