Small steps 🙂

Thanks guys, I need a few smileys in my life right now…. 🙂

Great news after all you’ve been through, though it will be a long road yet.

This thread has given me plenty of perspective on what were some really piffling and selfish “problems”.

Yeah don’t forget that your immediate family needs care too, including yourself.

BOL.

😀

That’s great news. I assume by intubated, that he’s still ventilated by mouth? When I was intubated they kept the sedation turned up to 11 most of the time as it really isn’t pleasant to be ventilated. Once they gave me a trachy (after about 10 days or so), they could then decrease the sedation.

Obviously different scenarios here, but hopefully it’s good news.

Keep the updates coming. 🙂

Glad to hear some good news, I echo what’s been posted here the last hour or two.

To the medically untrained, this all sounds like wonderful news. I hope these snippets of positiveness continue.

All the best to you and yours. X

Keep your head up mate

Onwards and upwards some more. 🙂 🙂

Look after yourselves.

🙂 glad there’s some good news – hope you and yours are holding together

Sounds like a positive step in the right direction.

We want people who are in a coma to wake up and be cognitive. One of the hardest things I had to see was my Mum holding my dads hand whilst he was in a mediaclly induced come.

He would breifly flicker his eye lids or move an arm , She kept on saying ” Wake up , come on wake up ,please..” I had to bite my tongue and not state that he was in amedically induced coma for a reason ( massive infection ) and it was better all round if he stayed in a coma and gave all the drugs a fighting chance and all his body had to do was fight the bugs.

I bet you want your son to not be attatched to several machines and have wires and tubes in him so you can give him a bloody big hug ,but its the machines and tubes that are looking after him whilst his body does its best to fix itself .

Truely hope the signs of improvement continue and you can give him that hug in the near future

oldnpastit – I don’t think you realise how well you are doing. You’re finding some strength from somewhere and I admire you for keeping it all together for the sake of the rest of your family.

bunnyhop x

What an amazing bunch of people you guys all are 🙂

Good to hear some positive news. Stay strong Oldy

Everything crossed 🙂

So chuffed to hear the positive news, you too are doing brilliantly, keep looking after yourself as well

Great to hear another small step has been climbed! I hope your next post will bring some more positive news. 🙂

oldnpastit – Member

…AND look after yourself

I had never imagined that would be so hard.

its awful how much the not knowing takes out of you, last year I had possibly the hardest week of my life while my wife was in hospital for her brain operation. This was despite me not having to care for her at home as usual.

I take my hat off to those who work in hospitals as I find they suck the essence of life out of you even after the caring that the staff give.

Virtual hug for you ( )

I’ve not said much on this thread this far because I’m Aspie and my brain came preconfigured with a saying-the-wrong-thing chip. However, I’ve taken time to dwell on it, and if it’s ok I’d like to give you two pieces of advice based on hindsight from when I was in a vaguely similar situation.

1) Try not to jump to conclusions. You’ve a long road ahead with ups and downs, false hope isn’t helpful but nor is false, er, lack of hope. I thought I’d lost my mum at one point a few years ago, but she came back. The human brain is a quite, quite remarkable device. It’s inordinately difficult I know, but try to have some focus and not panic.

2) Look after yourself. I’m the world’s worst for “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, *bang*” because I lack the objectivity to be a good judge of my own psyche. The lesson it took me years to learn is that rather than my problems being a burden / worry on anyone else, or even just relatively unimportant, the crux of the matter is that if I fall over then I’m no bloody use to anyone else. You can only support your family if you’re firing on all four, this is really really important. It’s critical. Do something else, ride your bike, go camping overnight, have a long bath with some music on, whatever works for you, but you must do this if not for yourself then for the benefit of everyone around you. And don’t you even dare feel guilty about it. The bottom line is that you cannot run a marathon at sprinting speeds, and you need to be on your game.

Apologies if this comes across as insensitive, as I said earlier I have an underactive empathy gland so I’m a bad judge of what’s appropriate. But what I do know is that I wish to gods that someone had given me this advice a few years ago.

Hope everything works out for you.

That all sounds good sense Cougar
Good advice for us all, not just oldandpastit. Who deserves massive love and respect. And happiness.

Cougar – Moderator

You can only support your family if you’re firing on all four, this is really really important. It’s critical. Do something else, ride your bike, go camping overnight, have a long bath with some music on, whatever works for you, but you must do this if not for yourself then for the benefit of everyone around you. And don’t you even dare feel guilty about it.

I know what you mean but when your someones primary carer, time out just isn’t an easy option. In my case I’ve had 1 day off caring for my wife since 2010 & working full time and that was because I ended up in hospital myself.

Sure. But I wasn’t saying it was easy, I was saying it was important. With all due respect and speaking as a carer myself, whilst admirable that doesn’t sound healthy to me. One day off in four years? What happens to your wife when you’re debilitated through injury or illness? Do you have secondary carers?

Something someone said to me when I was going to pieces and trying to prop every bugger else up, “where’s your support network?”

You have to look after number one. That’s not selfish, it’s imperative.

But anyway. This isn’t the place for a debate. My intention was to try and help the OP, I don’t know if that worked but I’m going to bow out now. I sincerely hope I did the right thing here.

Thanks for the update oldnpastit – definitely sounds like progress. As has been said, make sure you look after yourself too.

Still keeping ’em crossed.

Good news Oldnpastit .Its good to see that a bickering bunch of cyclists can pull together and support another when it really matters .I hope as we all do to read of more improvement over the coming weeks .Stay strong.

Very good news – Personally I think one of the hardest things in your situation is getting your head around the timescales – we’re so used to getting information on demand/at our fingertips that working in weeks/months is alien to us.

Stay strong, and try to take a little time for yourself, even if it is just sitting outside with a hot drink…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojfD0rpAhMU[/video]

I’m really pleased for you oldnpastit, good luck to you and your boy.

Hi oldnpastit, I’ve been holding off from posting but you and your family have been in my thoughts. My household has n=2 with brain injuries in the past couple of years. One could probably be classed as ‘catastrophic’.

Brain injuries are not degenerative diseases. They are worst at the beginning. If you can hang on now, it is only going to get better.

And if it does get better, it is going to get even more knackering for you. The advice above about looking after yourself is what you actively need to do.

And the doctors will continually scare you, it is their job to worry. Ride your bike.

It all sounds less bleak than in the early days, so for that reason I’m delighted for you. Although you clearly have a pragmatic side, and this will help for the future.

Cougar is right though; if you’re not safe and functioning, it’ll all fall apart. So make sure you look after yourself as much as you look after everyone else.

Best wishes though!

I keep popping by for the updates and its great to hear things are slowly getting better….

Chin up… Probably a long journey but your going in the right direction…

Good advice from Cougar, thanks.

Yesterday they deintubated him and switched off all of the sedation.

When I went down he was asleep, but apparently earlier in the day he was very alert, and able to move around and even to speak a bit, although his voice is very hoarse from the intubation. He was asking about where he is, and how he got there (no-one has told him yet what he did, and he doesn’t seem to remember).

Apparently he was very shocked when he found out he’d been asleep for 20 days.

It’s amazing how fast young bodies heal themselves. Gti Junior is 15 and has been in hospital three times, for an illness and two accidents and has made a complete recovery each time.

Amazing 😀

Great news!

Excellent, sounds like things are going in the right direction 🙂

Wonderful news to start a new week with 😀

that’s great news, pleased for you. Hope things continue in a positive direction

That’s another positive step, thanks for posting.

This may or may not be the right time and place, but what steps are you planning on putting in place to resolve the longer term issues assuming he makes a physical and mental recovery? I can only assume there’s an underlying reason behind his decision and that needs looking into and sorting ?