Discoveries

I won't get into too much detail about Codi's injuries because they are just too hard. I spoke with Dr. Paschall about Codi's injuries. He told me that they were life-threatening. He also said, while the bruises were a concern, they were not the most significant injury. He began to explain that her head injury was consistent with an acceleration/deceleration injury, or in lay-terms, Shaken Baby Syndrome. Hearing that broke my heart. How could anyone do that??
He went on to describe the extent of her head injury. He stated that this was a severe case of shaken baby. Dr. Paschall informed me that babies in car accidents usually did NOT sustain an injury as severe as Codi's.
He explained to me that all of the blood vessels that connect her brain to her skull were severed. He further told me that she also had an impact injury to the front part of her brain. And those injuries alone did not coincide with the story they were given on what happened.
The police, as well as myself, had been told that Codi took a nap, woke up crying, walked across the floor, went limp, fell and hit her head and had a seizure. I asked Dr. Paschall if the seizure could have caused the head injury. He said no, the head injury caused the seizure.

Along with the head injury, Codi was covered in bruises. She had bruises on her face, arms, legs, back and buttocks. Some of the bruises were so dark they were almost black. The bruise on her little nose made it look like her nose was broken but it wasn't. She had no broken bones, no fractures. The marks on her were so hard to look at because seeing them, you knew that someone did this to her. What was even harder was looking at her eyes. Her big beautiful blue eyes. Eyes that sparkled and danced with laughter and life. Eyes that were now empty and dull. Eyes that had multi-layer retinal hemorrhages.

I knew in my heart that Codi wasn't coming home but I never gave up hope that she would. I didn't care if she was a special needs child. I didn't care if she wasn't perfect. I just wanted my baby girl home with me.
I face some very difficult decisions during this time. Did I want her kept alive on life support? If so, for how long? One cannot fathom how hard it is to make those decisions because if you say yes, keep her alive, is that really living?? Would she want that?? And if you say no, don't let her live by machines, are you giving up on her??
I felt that Codi would not want to be alive if she had to have a machine breathe for her. I don't think that keeping someone alive that way is really living and I couldn't do it. Yes, I wanted her alive but she was showing no brain activity. None. The only thing that Codi was doing without the help of a machine or drugs was her heartbeat. Her heart was beating but she wasn't alive. That fact alone broke my heart into a million pieces.