News
WESLEY CHAPEL — The boys were upstairs and restless.
"As soon as I get the laundry done, we'll go somewhere," Janice Gallagher kept telling her sons Jamey, 9, and Tommy, 12.
It was about 11 a.m. July 9 when she heard Tommy scream. It was a cry she'd never heard before. Gallagher ran up the stairs and saw Tommy with blood dripping from just below his eye. Jamey was hysterical. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," he sobbed.
Jamey had found a BB gun in his closet, which everyone thought was broken and not loaded. He playfully fired it at his big brother.
"It's okay," Tommy kept saying, trying to calm his little brother. "I don't blame you."
Gallagher wiped the blood from Tommy's face and saw a teeny mark below his left eye. She called her husband, Bill, who was in the Bahamas working on a job as a glass consultant.
"Is there any chance it went inside his head?" Bill Gallagher asked his wife.
"No," she said. "It just looks like a dent."
The next day, Tommy told his mother he had trouble moving his left leg and arm. His mother thought he might have slept on it wrong. Then he said he had a headache. She called the doctor's office July 11 and the soonest they could see him was July 13. Tommy kept getting worse. He felt light headed. By the time of his appointment, he wasn't eating and needed help walking.
"Either the BB is still in there or something else is wrong," the doctor told Janice Gallagher. "You need to take him to the emergency room. Now."
She took Tommy to St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Tampa, and couldn't believe what she saw on her son's CAT scan:
The BB was lodged in his brain. It went under his left eye, through his sinuses and lodged itself in the back right side of his brain, leaving a trail of blood.
He was "lucky" to be alive, said Dr. Richard Weibley, a pediatric critical care physician at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital. He said the BB could have blinded him. It could have penetrated an artery. It could have killed him.
"This is a pretty unique situation," Weibley said.
When he was admitted, Tommy couldn't move the left side of his face or body. Doctors did not know if it was permanent.
Bill Gallagher flew home. Doctors told the family the BB was in an inoperable spot. The risks were too great to remove it. They said a membrane would form around the BB and it shouldn't move. For days, the family kept a vigil by Tommy, who could still speak even though he couldn't move the left side of his mouth. Jamey hovered by his bedside.
"At least you were a good shot," Tommy joked.
On his fifth day in the hospital, Tommy moved his arm and his leg. Just a little, but enough to give his family hope.
"He has to be okay," Bill Gallagher said. "He has to."
Soon, Tommy will be moved to an inpatient rehabilitative unit at Tampa General Hospital. Doctors can't give an estimate on how long Tommy will be there, because it depends on how quickly he progresses. It could be weeks. It could be months, followed by still more outpatient therapy. He'll likely miss the first bit of his seventh grade year at John Long Middle School in Wesley Chapel.
Tommy is thankful he's right handed. He's an artist who does oil paintings and he also plays the guitar. He helps his mother with household things while his dad is away; fixing the toilet, mowing the yard, cooking. He loves his dog, Murphy, a mixed breed who has been moping since Tommy's been gone.
Tommy still can't sit up on his own.
"I'm so frustrated," he said Tuesday afternoon in his hospital room at St. Joseph's.
"I know, I know," his mother said softly, as she cut his lunch for him. "You want to move."
Tommy leaned his head back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He didn't say anything else. Earlier, he told his dad he can't wait to run again. He's not even considering the idea that he might never walk unassisted. He might never be 100 percent of what he was.
"But I can be 99.9 percent," he said, and smiled.
Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6229.
Loading...
