Hello All.
Well, it was an interesting weekend for football....Ohio State lost, Ducks won and Derek ended up riding in an ambulance.
Derek was invited to play in the Tanoa Bowl. It is an all-Polynesian football game. It was 4 states (Utah, Washington, Alaska and Oregon) all playing. Sadly, Team Oregon had to compete against a very good Team Alaska. Gary and his friend, Dawn, came down to watch as well. Derek got to play Tight End and receiver. It was so much fun watching and yelling for Team Oregon....until 3 seconds before half time when the ball was intercepted and Derek went after the ball. That is when Derek got a helmet to helmet hit.
Derek was lying there on the ground not moving....and I turned to Gary and said "um...he's getting up right?". Actually no, it looked as if Derek had broken his neck. So he got to ride to the hospital in an ambulance. I immediately called mom and told her what was going on. She called the temple and put Derek's name in the temple. And as I was being driven to the hospital by one of the workers at the game, I said to mom, "find out who is a bishop up here so Derek can get a blessing." The lady driving me said, My husband is the Bishop.
Nothing is more scarey than watching your son being taped (helmet and all) to a board by EMTs not knowing what is going on.
I knew that Derek was going to be ok...many blessings were said and by the time he was in the hospital, Derek was able to tell me quite a bit. They took a CT scan of his head and neck and both came back clean. We were so relieved that he had not broken his neck. They finally took him off of the board from the ambulance. At that point, I let Gary and Dawn go home --> which if it weren't for them, I would have lost my mind.
Derek is completely fine. It is as if he never was injured. He got a little dizzy yesterday but I think he was trying to do too much too soon. He has no headache and no injury.
The picture of him in the hospital is Gary and me trying to lighten the mood in the ER. Even Derek laughed at that. The other picture is of the field in Auburn, Washington where they played. On the Friday night prior to the game, they had a HAKA contest between each team. Here is the web site to check out: http://tanoabowl.com/
THANK YOU for all your love and prayers on Derek's behalf. As Derek's only parent it was hard being brave in front of him.... I finally got to cry on the drive home from Auburn.
