Peyton’s Story

Site created on January 20, 2020

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your prayers and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. 

The evening of January 19 just before Walmart in Lebanon, Peyton inexplicably swerved into oncoming traffic and struck another vehicle. Both Peyton and the other driver were sent to the emergency room in Corvallis. We dont know much about the injuries sustained  by the other driver, but have heard he is doing ok as of today.

We can only speculate as to why Peyton swerved into the other lane. We are trying to piece together information from many different sources as he currently can't communicate with us and didn’t remember anything from the accident when EMT's arrived.

Peyton has a fractured arm, ankle and pelvis. His jaw is fractured in multiple locations. His lower lip was cut open pretty severely and some teeth are loose or missing. Peyton also had internal bleeding in his upper intestine as well as hematomas.

As of right now he has had two surgeries on his abdomen to stop the bleeding and to get him on a feeding tube. Both surgeries were successful and went very well according to the doctors. He is currently stable. He is and will remain pretty sedated because he has a breathing tube. He can breath on his own though. It was a precautionary measure due to the types of injuries he sustained to his face.  At some point tomorrow he will be transferred to Portland for his remaining facial surgeries and the fractured pelvis.

We have had lots of visitors, love and support. We are all just honestly relieved he is alive and doing as well as he is. The remnants of his car told a much worse story than the injuries he actually incurred.

We have all been spending so much time on the phone updating friends and family, and its getting difficult to keep up. We are going to start posting updates on his recovery on this website so that we only have to do it once. This will give us more time to be with family and take care of Peyton.  The most important thing is that he is ok and we are so very lucky to have him with us.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Jeana Dittmer

Sorry it’s been so long since we posted an update. Things with Peyton have been pretty stable with only a few changes over the last month. 

His feeding tube was finally removed 2 weeks ago.  He only needed it for a couple weeks after he came home from the hospital and that was just to crush his meds and administer them through the tube since his jaw was banded closed and he couldn’t swallow a pill. The tube has just been hanging from his abdomen and annoying him more than anything! He can move and bathe much more easily now with that gone. 

He started going back to classes at the high school once the feeding tube was out. Friends wheeled him around in his wheel chair since he still wasn’t able to walk with the broken ankle. He was so happy to be able to get out of the house and back to a routine with his friends at school. 

He has seen the OMFS team in Portland twice since my last post. As of last Friday he no longer has to wear the elastic bands but he still can not chew anything. His multiple jaw fractures were very severe, more so than I realized when he was in the hospital.  He goes back this coming Friday to have the implant posts that the bands were hooked to in his jaw removed, eight total! After that he can start easing back into chewing food. We got impressions taken last week for a temporary partial denture to replace the missing front teeth. Hopefully it will be back from the lab before the end of the week and he won’t have a pirate grin anymore!

Yesterday he saw the orthopedic doctor in Corvallis and he has graduated to a walking boot!! No more wheelchair or hopping! His arm is still not healed completely and may require surgery down the road. He goes back in 6 weeks for more xrays and re-evaluations.

Thank you to everyone who came down to Casa de Reyes for the fundraiser they did for Peyton. It went really well! I especially enjoyed getting to see so many people come in and visit with Peyton, many who hadn’t seen him
since before the accident. We are so thankful for everyone who has helped Peyton and supported him through all this. He is blessed with some pretty amazing friends.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We hope you are all healthy and doing well during all this craziness going on in the word right now. 
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