CAUGHT in the MIDDLE

The fun-loving son who made Margaret Williams laugh was lost in a car crash last Fourth of July.

What remains is an infantile version of 21-year-old Christopher, struggling to speak and stand.

The 2004 Palmer High School graduate, severely brain injured in the crash, is in a Denver nursing home. Margaret wants to move him into her Colorado Springs home or to a local rehab center.

But she is caught in a limbo of her own, trying to cope with a quagmire of medical regulations.

“I’m dealing with a bureaucracy, with all the red tape of Medicaid and the nursing home,” said Margaret, who hired an attorney for help. “I’m just trying to be his advocate. ”

The government agency paying his medical bills determines where he can go and when. He does not have private insurance and was on the state’s indigent-care program before the crash.

Officials say he’s “in between” care options.

Sue Williamson, spokeswoman for Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, said the nursing home placement is “medically necessary and in the best interests of the client.”

His mom disagrees.

“No 21-year-old should be in a nursing home,” she said.

She said he needs the cognitive therapies he got in the Denver rehab center.

“He is regressing,” she said.

A seasonal H&R Block tax adviser, Margaret has been crunched for time lately but still drives to Denver several times a week, sometimes staying overnight to tend to the son she raised as a single parent.

“Your child is a client to them; he’s my baby,” she said.

“Some days I’m OK; some days I just cry. A lot of friends help me. Antidepressants are good. You just take it day-by-day and minute-by-minute.”

It has taken a toll on her other son, Josh, 23, who dropped out of college, too distraught by his brother’s crash to study. He visits Christopher often, as does his grandmother, who lives in the Denver area.

Christopher’s skull was smashed, with most of the damage on the right side of his brain. Five brain surgeries kept him alive, Margaret said.

“Physically, he can’t do anything; mentally, he is confused,” Margaret said.

She takes solace in any sign the old Christopher is still in that broken frame somewhere.

He recognizes family members who sit by his bed or prop him into a wheelchair for a ride down the hall. He indicates what CD he wants to hear. He utters simple responses.

“He knows something is wrong,” she said. “He told my mom, ‘I’m not right.’ She said, ‘What do you mean you’re not right?’ He said, ‘My brain.’”

Some days, or even weeks, he doesn’t say a word.

He lives at Autumn Heights Health Care Center in Denver, a long-term care facility.

The controlled clinical setting is a drastic change from dorm life at Community College of Denver. Christopher played the drums and was majoring in music. He liked to party, said his mom, but he was always there for her.

“The week before the crash, I had gotten sick and he came up and spent four days with me,” she said. “He made me soup. If I tried to do anything he said, ‘You don’t have to get up.’”

He’d made a rap CD and was headed to his first paid performance in Albuquerque early in the morning of July 4.

He was driving the red 1999 Ford pickup handed down by his grandfather the year before when Christopher went to college.

A friend from Aurora was with him. It was about 3 a.m. when Christopher lost control of the truck on Interstate 25 near Pueblo.

“They were up all day and then left really late. What we think is he fell asleep and overcorrected,” said Colorado State Patrol trooper Kevin Betts.

The truck rolled 2½ times, coming to rest on its top.

His friend, wearing a seat belt, got cuts and bruises. The driver’s side took the brunt of the damage. Christopher, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown onto the road.

“They didn’t expect him to make it,” Betts said.

He was in intensive care, mostly comatose, for about three months at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo. From there he went to North Valley Hospital’s rehabilitation center near Denver.

“He was pretty much in a vegetative state,” Margaret said. “He had blank stares and wouldn’t look around; he couldn’t track with his eyes.”

She said he was improving with the rehab center’s extensive therapies, though it was slow-going.

“On Christmas, the doctor told me he would never walk or talk,” she said.

“The first word he said was to that doctor. Christopher said ‘What?’ when his name was said. We had hope that he was coming back again.”

That is, she said, until about a month ago, when he was moved to the nursing home.

Now, she said, “He doesn’t get the help he needs.”

State spokeswoman Williamson said Christopher is in Hospital Back-up, an in-between program for those who don’t need to be in the hospital but who aren’t candidates for a regular nursing facility.

“At this time, it appears his condition continues to require a high level of skilled nursing,” Williamson said.

She said he can get a brain injury waiver for Home and Community Based Services when deemed ready.

The waiver is to provide an alternative to a hospital or nursing facility, and covers services such as medical equipment and supplies, day treatment, home modifications and nonmedical transportation.

Kelly Parker, advocacy coordinator of Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, said facility options for Christopher are limited because of his age and injury.

She has gone to the nursing home with Margaret.

“Like with any parent the amount of stress is phenomenal,” Parker said. “To see her and Christopher together is remarkable. There isn’t a lot being said, but he can respond with a yes or no.”

Parker supports Margaret’s goal to move him into the family’s home if it’s made handicapaccessible.

Co-workers and neighbors have offered to lend a hand. Christopher’s friends set up a bank account to raise money to equip the home.

Meantime, Margaret takes the bad with the good.

“It’s always hard when you lose a child like you knew him. It’s a long grieving process,” she said. “I’d rather be visiting him in the hospital than by his grave. That’s what I try to remember.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com

TO DONATE

Donations can be made at any Chase Bank to the Chris Williams fund, No. 635012576.