Update on my daughter Grace

I just wanted to provide an up my daughter Grace Haines. If you are not aware, she was hit by a car while out for a run on the evening of January 25th. While the driver left the scene, Grace was found by a guardian angel of a resident of North Vancouver and rushed to Lions Gate Hospital. The past few weeks have without question been the most difficult period of my life.

Initially, the hospital had Grace in an induced coma and needed to conduct emergency brain surgery to remove a subdural hematoma (basically blood pooling on the brain). For the next week, she was kept in the coma and on a ventilator to breathe for her. The following week the doctors started to ease off the sedation and eventually Grace began to open her right eye and move around a bit. Eventually, she started some specific responsiveness like squeezing hands and giving a thumbs up when prompted.

As she began to show more responsiveness the following week, the doctors tried to take out of her breathing tube. The first attempt did not work as Grace was struggling to breathe on her own. So they needed to re-intubate her and that was a tough setback. Watching her gasp for air completely destroyed me. Finally, last Sunday, they were able to successfully get the breathing tube out and Grace can now breathe on her own.

From an injury standpoint, an MRI showed damage to Grace’s corpus callosum. This is the part of the brain that connects the left and right hemispheres. Not uncommon with severe head trauma, damage to these nerves can be a difficult injury to assess as it requires clinical examination and diagnosis. The news was devastating for our family. I personally struggled worse with that news than when I was told about the initial accident. Piece of advice: Never Google any ailment or injury your child has. Wait for an actual doctor to talk you through it.

Yet Grace is a fighter. Every day she shows greater responsiveness. She is alert most of the day now. While Grace can only open her right eye, she can see and recognize things to some degree. She seems to have excellent use of her right arm and leg. The left arm and leg can move, but not purposefully. So right now the focus is on the positive progression. Grace is giving regular hand signals and is even able to throw a straight right punch that she learned recently in kickboxing lessons with me. Plus she seems adamant about pulling the feeding tube out of her nose (sorry nurses).

Yesterday Grace was finally moved out of intensive care and into the neurology critical care unit. Next, she will be moved to the Sunny Hill rehab facility at BC Children’s Hospital. How long she is there will depend on the severity of the clinical diagnosis of her brain injury and how well she responds to therapy. From there she will hopefully go home and continue therapy as an out patient. She needs to learn how to walk and talk again, so it will be a long road. This will be difficult for her and our family, but we are ready for the challenge.

I want to thank everyone for their positive thoughts and prayers for Grace. Two weeks ago, I wasn’t sure if she was going to live. My faith faltered many times, my emotions got the better of me, plus the hopelessness turned into depression and anxiety. But whenever that happened, I saw a text, email or posting from someone and that made all the difference. The #liftingforGrace pictures and videos made me remember how hard she worked in the gym and at school and how much that motivated me to be better in my own life. As she becomes more alert and cognitive, I’m going to show her every single video to motivate her to work hard at rehab and get better. So many people around the world (even from Brazil and Australia) lifted weights for Grace when she couldn’t. And one day, she will lift back every single pound to repay that kindness and support. Her strength coach Alejandra Miranda will see to that (thanks for everything Ale).

I also want to thank the Lions Gate Hospital and their amazing people for saving Grace’s life. Our family will be forever grateful to you all. And of course the first responders who gave her the initial care after the hit-and-run. People asked me from the start how they could help and I suggested donations to the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. From what the foundation staff have told me, over 100 people donated an excess of $40,000. That’s pretty amazing. I will try to thank all of you individually, but in the meantime I want to thank that group for supporting such a great institution. My family was simply hoping to redirect all the offers of food and gift cards to the hospital foundation. Never did I expect that kind of generosity.

My employer, Sun Life, has been amazing. Not just the company for allowing me the time off, but the people there who have reached out and offered support. People really do make the difference at Sun Life. The advisors and employees of Sun Life are all just incredible individuals. Thank you all.

Finally, on a personal level, I want to thank Gracie Barra Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for giving me the strength and ability to deal with the mental anguish. Jiu jitsu isn’t just a martial art. It’s the art of problem solving. It has changed my life for the better and I don’t think I could have made it through the past few weeks without this strong team at my side. Professor Leandro, Professor Rodrigo and all of our teammates around the world, please know that you’ve saved my life a few times over now. Obrigado and OSS!

Grace is an incredible young woman. At 17 years old, she has her whole life in front of her. She is physically strong and was going into her semester final exams with 100% in all courses. Part of me is devastated that her quest for deadlifting personal records and hopes to attend Queen's University to study engineering are now in question. We need more strong women in STEM programs. In my mind, an incredible future seemed to be robbed from her. I don't know if I could personally handle this kind of set back. But Grace is way better than me. She will handle it. She will show strength and resilliance that I could never match. She will overcome and defy my expectations, just like she always does. If I can do anything, it's to learn from that and be better myself. Funny, she's the one doing the lifting for me right now.

#liftingforGrace