A Personal Update

and a few related reflections on Kane's recovery

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I’ve haven’t published a blog post or this newsletter for a while. This is because these past 11-plus weeks, my family has been mostly preoccupied with our son-in-law’s recovery from a serious motorcycle accident he was involved in this summer.

Meanwhile, time has continued its unrelenting march toward our next season of the year. We have emerged from our preoccupation with all things essential to discover, serendipitously, that fall has arrived in North Idaho. The mountains that display various shades of green year round, now exhibit their evergreens warmly modeled with hues of gold and auburn. The mornings exhale white skiffs of frost and fill the air with its foggy dew. And, the afternoon sunshine barely seems to warm the air before darkness descends again, enveloping the landscape in night before dinnertime. 

In addition, for the past couple of weeks, we’ve been playing that notorious game of catch-up we’re all familiar with when we’ve been out of pocket with our regular routines for a while. Mostly, I’ve been finishing a few outdoor projects that demand attention before snow flies—which will likely be sooner than we think.

Here in the chimney of Idaho, fall tends to meander in, bringing its chilly mornings while still maintaining relatively warm days. Then, it conveniently warms up like summer is back, so it can surprise you with an overnight snow storm—mid-80s on Tuesday with a sudden snow dump on Wednesday (cue the infamous Snidely Whiplash guffaw).

A Miraculous Story of God’s Grace

On July 30^th, while riding his motorcycle to a jobsite, my son-in-law was struck by an inattentive motorist traveling on the highway in the opposite direction. The driver made a left-hand turn, striking him and subsequently launching him into another vehicle. Without an ounce of exaggeration, his injuries were so extensive it is a genuine miracle that he survived the accident.

Kane’s Accident Scene on US 95

After being life-flighted to two different hospitals in the region, he underwent surgery to repair a torn aorta on his left side. A torn carotid artery on the same side surprisingly clotted on its own—although recent scans indicate he may still require a stent. In most circumstances, we were told, patients with injuries like these bleed out before they make it to the hospital. 

The first surgery was to stabilize his vascular system. The next day, he underwent a second surgery on the numerous (many of them compound) fractures he suffered in the accident. Five breaks in his left leg (three of them in the femur), along with a wretched break in the wrist that shoved the bone up alongside the shattered left hand, took more than 10 hours of surgery and copious rods, pins, and plates to repair. 

Unfortunately, he stroked during the long surgery, with somewhere between 20-30 emboli (fatty tissue from the loose bone marrow) lodging in his brain. These emboli strokes grossly complicated his precedent neurological injuries by adding to two frontal-lobe TBI’s (Traumatic Brain Injuries) that occurred at the time of the accident.

Having stroked, and being comatose, the doctors were forced to wait before operating on his right knee which had been torn entirely from its socket. In the meantime, his right leg was fitted with an external fixator, a bar running the length of the leg screwed into the bones from the outside to hold the leg together and the knee in place. (The third surgery to repair the right knee eventually occurred approximately three weeks later.)

It took nearly three weeks for Kane to fully wake up from his second surgery, and by fully, I mean it took that long for him to become fully conscious, but with minimal cognition. Full cognition took much longer. To clarify, within a week of the second surgery, Kane could open his eyes but was not able to look at or track anything or anyone. He was awake but not cognizant. Around the second week, he began responding to stimuli. At the three-week mark, Kane says he has some random, disconnected memories. During that three-week period, the doctors were not optimistic about his neurological recovery. But he has been slowly regaining his cognitive functions and motor skills ever since. 

Tuesday will be twelve weeks since the accident and Kane is still not weight bearing on this left leg, continues to wrestle with some short-term memory loss, struggles with aphasia, and has distorted vision in his left eye. Nevertheless, it is remarkably evident that God has had his hand on Kane’s life.

Kane has been cheerful through the entire ordeal. He continues to be motivated to do the hard work required for his physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. Ashlynne, too, has been a rock, a committed wife and loving mom to her three boys through such a turbulent and unpredictable season. 

Kane’s will be a long journey to a full recovery, and because of the grace of God, we are optimistic (as are his doctors now too). What has been remarkable to me is that with each step of his recovery, he has accepted this hard Providence as having been orchestrated by God for his and his family’s good (Romans 8:28-30). 

A Berglund family photo in the healing gardens at Sacred Heart Hospital

Three Lessons for Reflection

As a short reflection, I want to share three lessons I learned experientially through this event. There are so many more, but I’ll limit this post to these three. And, of course, by calling these “lessons,” I don’t mean to imply they are not common knowledge for most thoughtful people. I only mean to say, I found a new level of appreciation for these truths that can only come by way of experience.

First, there’s a saying: one’s attitude determines one’s altitude. As I watched Kane navigate the myriad confines of his injuries, I wondered at his cheerfulness and motivation. My imagination reminded me often how deficient I would be in my ability to be so cheerful in and content with such a hard Providence. I don’t say that to sound humble; I say it because it’s really true. Watching Kane, I have witnessed what it means to suffer cheerfully and have been convicted (Phil 2:5-8, 14-16; 4:4). I was equally moved watching family members cheerfully sacrifice their time and resources in ways that literally upended their lives. 

Which brings me to the second experiential lesson. Community is paramount. Without a faithful Christian community, I’m not sure the outcome of this event would have been the same. There is no way to project through the inadequate medium of words the extravagant power of real community. There is no way to mention or thank all the family, friends, and fellow-laborers who have prayed diligently, who have sacrificed their time, their finances, their schedules, and even their own personal needs to serve a family in need. Even as recently as last night, Eric E. hosted a benefit concert on Kane’s behalf to help raise funds for their family. Building and maintaining healthy relationships is essential as like-minded Christ-centered community is one of God’s chief designs for human flourishing (Acts 4:32-37).

Third, God is Sovereign—and always good and only wise (Ps 34:8; 73:1, 28; 92:1). I realize for most of my readers this is self-evident, Christianity 101. But the meaning becomes experiential, that is it is only realized, when one is forced to reconcile with human limitations and yield completely to the outcome of circumstances left in God’s hands.

In regular circumstances, we often have various means at our disposal, and even when we are indeed commending the situation to God, we inevitably engage in some level of participation toward the outcome we expect (i.e., Lord, please give us this day our daily bread; then we head off to work). But when human limitations are real—i.e., no amount of money or modern technology can effect change—our trust in God becomes realized. It is ultimate.

One may wonder if I would be saying this if the outcome had been different. The honest answer is because I am a sinner, I don’t know; but I hope so. Nevertheless, I know plenty of God’s people who have suffered in kind but did not experience the same outcome as we were blessed to experience. Yet, in their tremendous loss, they have maintained the same knowledge I experienced in Kane’s situation—God is Sovereign, always good and only wise.