David Edgren (Dedgren) - Life Changing Accident

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Hi folks, many of our older members will know David Edgren (Dedgren) who was a big part of the SimCity community both here at ST and on SC4D for a number of years.   

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On June 23rd, he started out from Seaside, Oregon on a cross country bicycle trip.... he was to end up in Seaside, New York, on the 3rd of October.  As he collected memories, photo's, and new friends along the way, he continued to inspire and amaze those who have followed his life journey the past few years. His friends and family had no doubt that he would succeed, since he had already completed a long distance ride from Nova Scotia, Canada to Key West, FL, and another the length of the Mississippi - from Minnesota to Louisiana. The amazing pictures, and the detailed (and often witty) commentary he posted with each ride drew you in and left you eagerly awaiting the next.

On July 23rd, David had made it well into Montana - 30 days into his ride.  When David didn’t show up at camp that night, his riding partner retraced their route looking for him. They had been riding on a hilly dirt road, off the beaten path. He found David lying on the road, but had to leave him and ride away to where he could find a cellphone signal to call for help. David had apparently crashed on a steep downhill. By the time his partner had found him, David had been lying alone for more than four hours. He was taken by helicopter to Great Falls, MT, where his injuries were determined to be severe enough that he should be flown to Harborview Hospital in Seattle.

Although we pray and hope for miracles, things are progressing slowly.  The injuries are extremely severe.  He had two definite cervical fractures at his C6-C7 (requiring surgery to stabilize), a gash on top of his head, a subdural hematoma at the base of the skull, a broken rib, and various scrapes and bruises. In addition to the C7 fracture, David has a C2 fracture and C2 spinal cord injury. This very high fracture and injury is what makes the ventilator necessary. Only time will tell, and the sheer force of David’s will, if we will be able to leave this piece of equipment in our dust. It has left him (at this time) paralyzed from the top of his shoulders down. Hearing that most likely David will never be able to return to Alaska, much less to his home, was heart wrenching. Based on the care and services that will be required as a result of the spinal cord injury - we have been told those services are just not available in AK. Dave will be in Seattle for the foreseeable future.

As you can see this has been a very serious accident, and I am sure that there are those from the SimCity community that would like to know more about his condition and follow any updates.

His family have set up an information site on Caring Bridge:

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren

I am sure that David and his family would appreciate any messages of support from the SimCity community and these can be left on the Caring Bridge site.

Naturally due to the permanent and devastating nature of his injuries there will be financial needs for the family.

A Go Fund Me page has also been set up to assist David and his family:

https://www.gofundme.com/catastrophic-injuries
 

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

David is now much more alert and awake, so I am sure he would appreciate any messages left by his friends on the caring bridge page from the SimCity community:

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren

Edit:   I have also sent Heather (David's wife) a link to this thread.

 

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

I have been having a little tour through some of my SimCity 4 tiles...   and I seem to keep spotting David on his Blue Surly Disc Trucker.

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren/guestbook

[riiga 233]

Truly sad news to hear. I wish him and his family all the best in his (hopeful) recovery and thank him for all he's done for the SC4 community throughout the years.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

David is making progress, he is starting to manage off the ventilator which is great news.

Read the last couple of updates here:

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren/journal

 

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Six Week Update

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September 5, 2019

Journal entry by susan kidder 

A six week update…. Hard to believe it has been that long.

 This is sort of an update on David – but also a little bit of a tribute to Heather.  Receiving the kind of news she received about Dave was enough to crush anyone.  In an instant, life as she knew it was changed.  She has dealt with it as well as anyone can expect, without hesitation.  Heather has one of the hardest jobs imaginable – and she has to keep her emotions tucked away as she deals with the daily hardships of her new life. As she celebrates each and every success, she also deals with the hard reality of daily life...

Read more here

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

David has regained some movement in his fingers!

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren/journal

 

[catty-cb 4,381]

That's really great news 

[PaPa-J 778]

Awesome news! This is great!

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

October 14, 2019

A MESSAGE FROM DAVID.......

Hi ho. Well, I ate’nt dead, as Granny Weatherwax famously used to say when she was away for a time. (I think that Granny was the main character that Terry Pratchett’s Disc World Series was written around, but that’s another matter altogether.) So yes, I am still waiting for that updated iPad that will let me control it with my now restored voice. Something about the government ordering process and all that has added about eight weeks to the normal overnight time it takes to get one from Apple. “Your tax dollars at work.” Heh.

So what I’ve been planning to do all along was to burst back onto the Internet scene with the first of many posts I’ve written in my head while hospitalised since the last one back in early September. A lot of things have happened- pretty much all of them good- so I have a lot to tell you about without tipping my hand here as the iPad is absolutely, positively supposed to arrive during the coming week. I’m going to stick with that plan and just be brief here. I’m simply too excited to keep the following information to myself for even a day longer, though. So here you go.

On Tuesday of last week, I was laying in bed, an activity that I seem to be doing a lot of these days- in fact, I know I’m doing a lot of that these days as there are two modes of being a brand new tetraplegic; in bed and in a wheelchair. I had my iPad propped in front of me on one of those hospital tables that you can never get the base of to fit properly under anything with my hands next to it. I’d spent more than an hour willing my index fingers to start tapping up and down in the hopes that I could somehow, once again, be typing. That, of course, didn’t work as everyone who has ever engaged in a similar mind control exercise knows all to well.

So now onto the following day, Wednesday, October 9th, I was wheeled down to the physical therapy gym and asked what I would like to do. “Why, ride a bicycle, of course,” I responded as if I would want to do anything else. To my surprise, I was rolled over to one of the stationary bikes in the gym and was assisted in getting my feet into the stirrups. It was explained to me that the bike had a motorised assist and that my legs would not be doing any of the pedaling. I already knew that, of course, since my legs haven’t been doing anything except hanging down from my waist since the accident back in late July. But shortly they were moving in a slow pedaling motion and I was in heaven, back doing a small part at least of what I loved to be doing. Eighteen minutes later, I reluctantly surrendered the bike, having added about two-tenths of a mile to the thirty-seven hundred or so that I had cycled in the fitness center in Alaska this spring. No matter, I will remember this ride forever. I may not have actually gone anywhere, but in my mind just having my legs spinning in the pedals was the equal of anywhere I’d ever ridden in actuality.

But the best was yet to come. That night I slept really well. After the next day’s sessions were over, on the tenth, Heather and I were sitting in my room and I was concentrating on moving my left index finger. To my complete surprise, when I looked at my left hand my index finger moved up and down. Not wanting to believe what I was seeing, I said to Heather, “Look at this.” I thought about moving my left index finger again. It moved again. I thought about it one more time. The finger moved one more time. Heather pulled out her phone and recorded a short video. My finger bobbed up and down obligingly.

I am going to leave the story right there for now. You can imagine how we felt. I am realistic about how this finger movement could mean everything or could mean nothing, but for right now- the sky’s the limit. Thanks in advance for checking back for more soon.

P.S. I am so gratified by all the responses to our posts along with all the cards, letters, and other things that I have received by mail over the past weeks. I will be looking for a way to respond to each directly. I am truly touched by your well wishes and incredible generosity.

David

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren/journal

 

[slickbg56 778]

May the good news and recovery continue for you!!!

[AsimPika3172 1,129]

I hope David will OK right now. 

[PaPa-J 778]

This is great to hear.  Keep up the great work.

[mattb325 28,880]

What wonderful news! I am so pleased to read of your recovery. 

[tariely 4,496]

OMG, David, I didn't know of your accident ! Silver lining of being late : I'm here just in time for the good news ! Sky's the limit indeed. Pedal Away !

[RipRap 4,400]

I really hope for you to get well soon! You can do this. 

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

First post accident Starbucks, "Oh God, that's wonderful!"

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Great David, still following you on FB, Buddy. Great to hear the improving.

 

 

Fred

[911Diva 23]

Best of luck, for a full recovery!  We are thinking of you at SimCity!!!

[catty-cb 4,381]

A post from David.....

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Hey, hey, HEY! That was radio announcer Jack Brickhouse’s exultant shout every time a member of the Chicago Cubs hit a home run at Chicago’s “beautiful” Wrigley Field in the 1950s and 60s. Brickhouse otherwise didn't have a whole lot to shout about- Major League Baseball had to invent the New York Mets in 1962 so there’d be a team with a worse won-loss record than the Cubbies. But you could tell from Jack's voice that this fact didn't matter to him one bit, and that as far as he was concerned what lay ahead was a whole new ballgame.

I lead off (note clever reference continuing the baseball lede) with that little story to take some of the edge off of what is going to be a fairly morbid post. If you're looking for a sweetness and light from me tonight you might want to skip over what follows. I am in full bore serious mode right now and I have to get this out of my system so that I can move on and have the space to be in fact "relentlessly optimistic."

Confronted over the past couple of months in a very direct manner with the reality of my own mortality I have reached the conclusion that everyone's life, no matter how charmed or wonderful or carefree it might seem at any given moment, has a dark and awful core at the center of which has been placed a time bomb with the timer activated and counting down. There is no way to defuse or jettison this device- Keanu Reeve won't be coming to your aid- and it likely will not be revealed to you, if ever, until the moment or just before when it goes off. That, as they say, sucks but what are you going to do?

At the top of the final hill on Knox Ridge Road in the heart of the Eastern Missouri Breaks about a mile before reaching the James Kipp Recreation Area campground my own personal bomb’s timer had about eight minutes left to go on it. This is the point shown in the marquee photograph of this post. The campground can be seen in the photo off in the distance down on the bottom land next to the river. I'd estimate much of the hill drops in excess of a 20% grade. This was the last photo that I took before my accident. I began creeping down the hill at a pace just sufficient to keep my bicycle upright. About as fast as the average person walks. Not slow enough, in any event. Just under eight minutes later my front wheel went into the pothole of doom and my time bomb went off sailing me over my bike’s handlebars and onto my face and outstretched neck in the sand and gravel of the road’s surface.

But my time bomb turned out to be a dud. Instead of next seeing Terry Pratchett’s “Death” character and hearing “WELCOME. OH, AND sir Terry told me to tell you ‘thank you’ for buying all of those discworld books.” Instead who I saw was Fred Rogers and he was saying “Can you say ‘oopsie’?” It remains to be seen, I guess, whether having a spinal cord injury that has left me paralyzed from the neck down beats being dead but right now I would tend to think so. To that end I have unilaterally declared that any Facebook posting I do will be done in a “NO WHINING” zone. As I've said above, the situation may suck but I have a choice as to how I'm going to deal with it for the rest of my life and that choice is to be relentlessly optimistic. If you ever catch me acting otherwise, please call me on it.

But I am, as Bob Dylan noted once upon a time, in uncharted territory. I mean, I never saw myself having to learn how to use an Apple Pencil with a mouth stick… yeah, that sort of thing. As you've noticed the learning curve has slowed things up a bit. Awwright, dammit- I’ll admit it. A lot. In a few days I will be four months out from my accident and what?? This’ll be the third facebook post I've made over that time. But you'll have to excuse me, and I'll say please and thank you in advance for your forgiveness. Suffice it to say that I had a lot of demons to kill to get to this point. But better them than me, eh? Yep, that's the ticket- relentless optimism, and here goes.

Side2Side is going to happen. I can tell you right now that it won't look like the ride I intended in many ways but with your amazing continued support I believe that I can come up with a way of completing it that will please most everyone. Thanks so much for coming along and, dare I say it, hold on. It's going to be one heck of a ride.

p.s. Pete Townshend is 74 years old this year. Take that for what it's worth.

 

[kellydale2003 2,276]

My last message from David was a threatening message promising to sue me.

Nonetheless, good luck with a speedy recovery! I was in a wheelchair and crutches for two years after a car accident. It's a long road to recovery and you'll need all the support you can get.

Good luck!

[ilikehotdogsalot 307]

Just logged in for the first time in a while and was so sad to hear about the accident, but also so thrilled to hear about his recovery as I read through the thread and updates. Wishing you the best David! Hope you continue with your amazing recovery!

[gfvsims 169]

This is my first time on Simtropolis in a long time as well. This is awful news to read!

If you see this, David - I really, really hope that things are improving for you. Wishing you a full recovery!

[philforhockey51 4,203]

Saddened and now glad to hear the news. Hope you enjoy more progress and the positive attitude goes a long way. good luck

[catty-cb 4,381]

On 12/10/2019 at 11:31 AM, philforhockey51 said:

....Hope you enjoy more progress and the positive attitude goes a long way. good luck

Have just checked into the CaringBridge site to see how he's doing

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidedgren/journal

Back when he first had the accident his ASIA (American Spinal Injury Association) test was

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Grade A - Complete lack of motor and sensory function below the level of injury

the test has now been re-done and he's now

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Grade C -Some muscle movement is spared below the level of injury, but 50 percent of the muscles below the level of injury cannot move against gravity.

here's hoping there is more improvement in the future