prayers, good thoughts, hypnotic jiving*, whatever you've got--we'll take it

This is my 16-year-old nephew Preston:
He's my oldest step-brother's son. He still calls me Scary Carrie, my brother's nickname for me after Preston was born because Preston would cry every time I held him. I remind him that I need a little respect because I changed his diapers. Paul and I tease him about going to Texas Tech rather than the University of Texas. We try to bribe him with promises of meals when we visit Tech, which doesn't sound that great at 16 but we promise him will be much welcomed at 19 or 20. We gave him a Hula Girl dashboard doll for Christmas (along with gas money). He wants to be a dentist when he grows up. He's much too cool to be around us but at the same time, he will sit and chat with us.

Preston was in a car accident yesterday afternoon when he rolled a truck he was driving for work. He's currently in the ICU at a hospital in Amarillo on a ventilator and in a medically-induced coma because of pressure on his brain. He has severe head trauma but fortunately, no spinal cord damage has been found. It's going to be a long healing process for him and we still don't know all the damage that has occurred. He's young and he's strong so he's got that going for him but he's still severely injured. But we have him and he's in one piece and all the pieces seem to be working. I truly believe in the power of prayer and it is definitely needed right now for Preston, for his parents Gene and Shawn Ann, his stepmother Lita, his sister Holliday, and the rest of the family.

*And I have no idea what "hypnotic jiving" might involve. I just wrote that as I was writing the title and now it makes me laugh every time I see it so I left it.