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Colin’s Story
Site created on July 18, 2020
Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.
On July 15th at approximately 12:30 AM the lives of our oldest son Colin, and the lives of Jeff, Deb, and Charlie Shouse changed forever. During a robbery at Colin’s new digs for the upcoming school year he was shot in the face at nearly point blank range with a shotgun by a cowardly, worthless piece of human garbage. Thanks to his cousin Patrick his life was saved and for that we are eternally grateful. If not for his quick actions at the scene and the efforts to get emergency help quickly the story would have ended there. Thanks to him there will be many future chapters to write. The last 72 hours have been the most difficult of our family’s life. Colin was airlifted from Vidant Hospital in Greenville, NC to UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill (sorry Duke fans, but you are still welcome here😊). Since that time we have had many ups and downs but I’m happy to report that we are trending in the right direction. This is the horror portion of the story so I’ll try to keep it brief. The “mid-face” region was, prior to this, a part of medical nomenclature that I was not familiar with. For you other neophytes out there, this region is from your upper lip to your eyebrows. This was almost completely obliterated in Colin’s case. The worst news is that both of his eyes were almost completely destroyed. Barring some technological miracle in coming years Colin will never see again. His nose was totally destroyed as well. Now for the positives. He is alive, which according to several doctors is almost to the point of a medical miracle. His brain is intact and without injury and his body from the neck down is nearly completely unaffected (except for some deep bruises to his ribs). In time we are optimistic that speech and eating will return to his repertoire of abilities. In the last 24 hours he has been removed from a ventilator and is breathing on his own. This is a huge step in getting him out of the ICU in the coming days/weeks. He went through an exploratory surgery yesterday evening so the team here could plan their next moves with his initial reconstructive surgery. That surgery will likely take place on Monday or at the latest the first part of the coming week. They will remove muscle and tissue from his back to form the foundation for where his new nose will be. This will be the first in a series of surgeries that Colin will undergo in the upcoming weeks and months. I’ll keep everyone updated here as the journey continues. Deb, Charlie and I are continuing to get stronger as the days go by but there will be many tears shed in the interim. There are no words to express the gratitude and appreciation that we have experienced since this tragedy occurred. From friends and family that are in our lives almost daily to people we haven’t seen or heard from in some time both near and far have come forward to express their thoughts and prayers and avail themselves if there is anything we need in the short term. I can’t express enough how much all of this means to us. I’ll close for now but will be back in touch shortly.
I will throw this out for anyone who is compelled but by no means am I trying to separate people from their hard earned money but a GoFund Me account has been set up by one of our closest friends sons. The name of the page is Collections for Colin Much love to everyone ❤️
Hello All and a Very Merry Christmas ! We have certainly been blessed and God is Good.
Colin had a surgery on Nov 9th in preparation for his prosthetic. We were told there is a 3 month healing period before he could get his nose. Well GOD delivered! We had a very long week this week with appointments ( multi hour) on Monday,Tuesday and finally on Thursday.
I am so please to share this picture of Colin from last night!
Colin has also had some incredible computer training and learning basic Braille. The company he is part of has actually made a Braille version of their apparel. This is truly exciting for him to be the brand ambassador for Eat Your Veggies Braille version.
We will post more at Christmas but what a year it has been and we are so excited to share.
I thank you all so much for your inquiries, support, and love.
