today my mom took charlie back up to regions hospital where they have his skull flap piece in frozen storage. yesterday he’d had the worst headache he’d ever had and nausea, so they went in to mayo, where they told him he had air on the brain. bad news. tomorrow they will get in his head and see what needs to be done about the air on the brain. 
so we’ve gone over charlie’s previous encounters with car accidents; let’s pause for a moment on previous head injuries. well, just one for now.
cha’s always hung out with people who are highly suggestive, and he is highly suggestible. in gradeschool at religion classes, it was nothing to see him and his friend dustin racing wheeled office chairs down the church halls. even now, it’s nothing to get him to try something a little questionable. last summer at a family reunion, his cousins (and brother-in-law…) got him to hitch himself to a tent fly and jump off a small hill during one of the windy evenings.
so when his gradeschool friends brought up the idea of flying headfirst into a wall on one of those roller scooters everyone’s used in gym class, he was all over that.
thankfully, someone had the foresight to make him put on a helmet. 
so his friends rolled him toward the wall and he ran into it (with the helmet). next thing you know, he’s in the nurse’s office and mom has been called. after a visit to the doctor, turns out he definitely smashed a vertebrae. 
and to this day, we keep reminding him he could’ve been a half an inch taller. (or a baller. or had a girl who looked good; he would call her. a rabbit? a hat? a bat? a ’64 impala!)