James Pence

James Pence concludes the miraculous story of Nate Lytle. Hope you’ll check out his novel, More God.

Welcome back, James!

Part 2

The doctors called Nate Lytle’s injury “non-survivable”.

Nate Lytle, a 24-year-old surfer from Victoria, Texas sustained a severe head injury in a fall from a ten-foot ladder. When the doctors did a CAT scan, they discovered the extent of his injuries:

· He had a softball-sized hole in the left side of his skull.

· The impact of falling off a ten-foot ladder drove skull fragments deep into his brain.

· In emergency surgery, the neurosurgeon removed three massive hematomas. When he removed the third, the left side of Nate’s brain collapsed.

· The CAT scan showed early herniation of the brain stem, a potentially life-threatening complication.

· The scan also showed a midline shift (the impact caused the brain to shift off-center). The ER physician said that a shift of one or two millimeters was considered “grave.” Nate’s brain shifted 1.7 centimeters off center.

The doctors did not hold out much hope for Nate’s survival. If he did manage to survive, they gave even less hope for his potential quality of life. The areas of Nate’s brain that had been damaged were the parts that control movement, speech and communication. The neurosurgeon said even if Nate were to survive, he would never walk or talk or even communicate again.

Surrounded by family and friends from their church, the only thing Billy and Tammy knew to do was pray. And pray they did.

Tammy knew that Nate could cope with living in a wheelchair, but it would absolutely kill him if he couldn’t communicate. Nate was a strong Christian with a passion for sharing his faith, and she knew that he would rather die than be unable to communicate. So she asked her pastor to pray that Nate would recover, and if he couldn’t recover, that God would take him home.

Nate survived the first night.

Then another.

And another.

The ICU team had its hands full, trying to manage Nate’s fever. And there were some scares when it appeared that he had a blood infection. But day by day, Nate slowly stabilized. He was in a full coma for two weeks and semi-comatose for four weeks after that.

When it appeared that Nate was going to survive, the neurosurgeon suggested that Tammy and Billy tried to get him into rehab. He still didn’t expect Nate to ever be able to communicate, but suggested that rehab might at least help him have some quality of life.

When Tammy asked the neurosurgeon what would be the best facility for Nate to do rehab, he told her TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas (The same place where Gabrielle Giffords would do her rehab a few years later). But because Nate had no health insurance and lived out of county, it was very unlikely that he would be able to go there.

Tammy, Billy and the Church began to pray again and within a few short weeks. Nate was admitted to TIRR Memorial Hermann.

Two weeks after he arrived at TIRR Nate woke up from his coma. He was able to walk and, although he stuttered badly, he could talk.

Nate’s road to recovery was long and challenging. After he was discharged from TIRR, he went on to do three months of inpatient rehab at TLC (Transitional Learning Center) in Galveston, Texas. Then more outpatient rehab and speech therapy once he was back home in Victoria.

Although his recovery was nearly total, Nate still bears some after-effects of his TBI. He has problems with short-term memory. At times—particularly when he’s tired—he struggles with aphasia and apraxia (speech disabilities where he knows what he wants to say but has difficulty finding the words and saying them), and he has to stay on seizure medicine.

Amazingly, though, Nate has no physical disabilities other than his shattered his left wrist. (Because of the severity of his head injury, the doctors weren’t able to repair his wrist right away and it healed incorrectly.) But despite massive trauma to the left side of his brain, Nate has no paralysis whatever on the right side of his body. In fact, one year to the day after his injury, Nate began surfing again. It was challenging at first, mostly because of the restricted movement in his left wrist, but before long he was surfing as if nothing had ever happened.

Nate now conducts surf camps for blind, disabled, and autistic children and adults. He also speaks to TBI survivors and their families. His amazing story is told in full in the book I co-wrote with him: More God: Seeing the Blessings through the Pain.

Nate’s infectious, optimistic personality is often reflected in his unique quotes, called “Nateisms” by his friends. My favorite, which inspired the title for this post, is: “Every day’s a good day when you’re not in a coma.”

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James H. (Jim) Pence is a man of many talents. He’s a performance chalk artist, singer, speaker, published author, editor, collaborator, and in his spare time he teaches karate to homeschoolers. Jim has been called a “Renaissance man,” but he prefers to be known simply as a follower of Jesus Christ and a storyteller. Jim has been published in both fiction and nonfiction. Recently, Thomas Nelson published “The Encounter,” a novella that Jim wrote in collaboration with bestselling author Stephen Arterburn. Jim’s newest book, More God: Seeing the Blessings through the Pain, is available in hardcover, softcover, and e-book format.

Links:

James’ Web site: http://www.jamespence.com/

YouTube Video about Nate Lytle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_oyX4rA07s

Nate’s Web Site: http://www.natelytle.com/

Photos courtesy of Alan Lindholm, G. Scott Imaging, and Danny Vivian

I’m pleased to host James Pence today who talks about his writing experience with a family whose child suffered a traumatic brain injury and had a truly miraculous recovery.

Welcome, James!

Part 1

Like many others, over the last year I’ve closely followed the story of Gabrielle Giffords. Her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head has been nothing less than remarkable. However, Congresswoman Giffords’ story was of special interest to me because as her ordeal unfolded, I was completing work on a book about another remarkable traumatic-brain-injury (TBI) survivor: Nate Lytle.

Nate is a young surfer from Victoria, Texas, whose life changed in an instant on June 4^th, 2007. Nate had gotten out of the Coast Guard only a few months earlier and was preparing to move to Tallahassee, Florida to be the youth and college pastor at a new church. Since he still had a week before he was to leave for Tallahassee, he offered to help out at his father Billy’s business, Engenco, a company that supplies engine parts to the oil and gas industry.

Nate was atop a ten-foot ladder, trying to help his dad maneuver a 300-pound diesel manifold off a twelve-foot shelf and onto a lift. They lost control of the manifold, and as it fell it clipped the bottom rung of the ladder, catapulting Nate into the air.

As Nate came down, he put out his left hand to try to break his fall, but succeeded only in shattering his wrist. After he landed, he heard a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

Billy climbed down from the shelf and found Nate conscious, but in extreme pain.

“Did you hit your head?” Billy asked.

“My wrist, my wrist,” Nate said, as he cradled his left arm with his right. His hand was a sickening sight, hanging loose, apparently attached only by muscles and tendons.

“Did you hit your head?” Billy repeated.

“No, my wrist. I hurt my wrist,” Nate replied.

Billy ran to get his truck. Because the location of his business was remote and difficult to find, he knew that he would get Nate to the hospital faster by driving himself. What neither Nate nor Billy knew was that Nate had sustained a severe head injury when he landed. Because he was wearing a baseball cap, Billy couldn’t see the huge dent in the left side of his son’s skull.

Billy put Nate in the back seat of his pickup truck’s cab and rushed to the hospital. In the back seat, Nate began to shout Coast Guard commands.

Nate’s mother Tammy arrived at the hospital about the same time that Billy pulled. She helped Nate into a wheelchair and took him into the ER waiting room while Billy parked the truck.

That’s when Nate crashed.

First, he began to talk gibberish. Then he stiffened and started to slip out of the chair.

A security guard helped Tammy wheel him back to a trauma room. The last thing Tammy heard as they closed the door was Nate, saying “I’m gonna puke!”

Over the next few hours, she and Billy would learn that Nate had suffered a massive head injury, He had a softball-sized hole in the left side of his skull, and the bone fragments had been driven deep into his brain.

The neurosurgeon told Billy and Tammy that they should think about making funeral arrangements.

Return Friday for Part II!

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