My Brother.. Eric

This has been a week of worry and stress. This past Saturday I got a call from my dad, he told me that Eric was jumped late Friday night by 6 guys and had a skull fracture, he was okay and on his way home from Harborview. I immediately was sick to my stomach, I was really upset and angry, scared and confused. I knew Eric would not be up for much company that day and since we had a planned horse club Movie Night at our house that evening, we worked on cleaning the house throughout the day and planned to go visit Eric on Sunday.

A few hours later dad called back and told me it was not six guys that jumped him, just one. He had misunderstood what Andrea had said, which was that there were maybe 6 guys standing around as one of them hit Eric. On Sunday, we got a little better idea from Andrea and Eric what happened, although Eric doesnt even remember being at the bar/restaurant that night, he only recalls waking up in the hospital.

According to Eric's friend, Eric and this guy were arguing/debating about political issues between Eric's fire district and Stanwood's. For some reason which is not clear, they went outside and at some point Eric got punched in the face hard enough that immediately knocked him out, he hit the ground and Eric's buddy jumped on top of him to protect him and his buddy is pretty certain that atleast the one guy, if not others, kicked them when they were on the ground. The guy took off of course and they are still trying to track him down and find out who he is, as he will be charged!!

Eric is NOT at all the type of guy to instigate violence or put himself in a position to get in a fight. Andrea was dancing, so she did not see any of this happen but I just know that NO WORDS are EVER worth hitting someone like that. This guy was probably looking for a reason to fight someone that night and unfortunately, my brother was the victim.

My brother did suffer a skull fracture, he had a pretty good indent on his forehead above his eyebrow, I guess they call that the orbital socket. On Wednesday, the doctor at Harborview told him they wanted to get him in the next day for surgery. So yesterday, they cut my brothers head open from ear to ear, he has a shaved headband basically where they cut him, and then they pealed his skin/face back far enough to get access to his eye area so they could install some small metal plates and screws. :(

It all sounds so scary... I was very upset yesterday at work, knowing what was going to happen to my pour brother and worried that there is always the chance of complications. We are not talking about a minor surgery here, this is a pretty big deal, I think anyways! He came through very well though, we were finally able to see him last night around 8pm. He was tired and groggy, so we only stayed a few minutes with him. I did not like seeing him lying there, but it really made me think about the what-ifs and how thankful I was that it was not any worse.

The criminal case has been turned over to Everett, which is a good thing! Apparently since they realized this was not just a simple punch to a guys face, that my brother suffered such major damage that they would put in the bigger effort to find this guy and prosecute his ass!!!! This surgery is a minimum $30,000 surgery plus Eric has to take a month off work... I am hopeful they will find him and he will go to jail.

I was pretty emotional yesterday, I was thinking a lot about my sister and how I never imagined my life would be so unlucky as to loose her and that if something that tragic could happen to me, then it could happen again some day and I should not take anything for granted. I love my family more than I tell them and just the thought of loosing any of them will bring me to tears, but it also gives me a little more strength in realizing I should try harder at making positive changes to myself so that one day they are not crying over me.