Michael’s Story

Site created on January 3, 2021

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 Saturday, January 2, Michael was playing hockey when he suffered an injury causing severe neck and back pain and brief loss of feeling in his arms and legs. We took him to the hospital where he was initially diagnosed with two unstable fractures in his neck, compromising his vertebral canal, but thankfully not significantly impinging his spinal cord. He was transported to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Tampa via ambulance as there was weather and the helicopter was not cleared to fly. After additional imaging, he was diagnosed with 3 cervical fracture C5-7, and 3 compression fractures in his thoracic spine, T10-12.
On January 5th he had surgery to repair the neck fractures. The thoracic fractures do not need repair. At the time of surgery, the ligament damage was noted to be more extensive causing some additional instability of C4 and C5. Rods and screws were placed to stabilize from C4-T2 which went well. The doctor said that it was an absolute miracle that he was not paralyzed from this injury. He will be braced for 3-5 months to aid in his recovery.
We appreciate the outpouring of support from everyone.

Newest Update

February 07, 2021

Journal entry by Wendy arsenault —

I posted earlier this week on Facebook and then just realized that there are a lot of people that are on this site that I am not connected with on Facebook. Sorry for the delay. 
We had a long day on Thursday up in St. Pete for doctor visits. Mikey had his recheck with the neurosurgeon and had follow up radiographs as well. They are happy with how he looks so far and his incision has healed well. His radiographs look great with good healing so far of the cervical and thoracic fractures. Yeah!!
We recheck again April 15th and he said if all looks excellent then he can get rid of the brace. 
Lots to be grateful for ❤️
Read More of the journal titled "February 07, 2021"
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