10 days ago my oldest brother, Craig, fell down his steps. There is about 12-14 steps and they are steep. He hit his head somewhere on the fall down. He most likely passed out but got up and tried to walk to my other brother's house (Craig lives in the apartment above my middle brother, Pat's garage), so Pat lives close by and it looks like he tried to go down into the yard to get to their house. He couldn't make it that far and for some reason go into Pat's truck and shut the door. It gives me a lot of hope that even before he had medical attention he was able to get up, walk and had enough sense to get in the truck. We're not sure what he was thinking. Luckily, my soon to be sister in law found him around 7 AM. I will be forever grateful that she had to go to work that day, the rest of my family was off work due to the Easter holiday. The ambulance came and my dad got there before I did so he only saw him in the back of the ambulance and he said his name and my brother turned to look at him but the EMTs asked that he not say anything else because of how restless Craig was. He was taken into the ER and they initially didn't think he had any head trauma until they did a CT. They explained the bleeding, contusions and swelling to us. They initially tried to treat it with medication after he was taken to the ICU. The meds worked at first but eventually stopped and they needed to do an emergency surgery. This felt like the scariest and worst moment of our lives, but the beauty in it all was that everyone in my family, extended family and all of his friends were there. When the doctor came to tell us that it went good he was a little shocked to see 20+ people there for just Craig. He had two good days and then a nurse discovered his pupil blew. They did an emergency CT and discovered a blood clot. He was given a second emergency surgery. Then that felt like worst moment of our lives. The doctor came out about two hours later and said it went ok, he said he had an angry brain and it needed a chance to rest. Monday morning a PA told my parents to prepare for the worst, then they spoke to his neuro team who was infuriated she said that because they did not agree. We're now one week out from the second surgery. He was receiving 50 mg of propofyl and they dropped it to 30 by Thursday. He is now at 15 mg. He will be removed from the sedative completely on Wednesday. We see goods signs when they do their neuro exams. He responds to light, he opened his eyes on his own and with commands. His right arm is the best when responding to painful stimuli and he can move both of his legs. His left arm doesn't react quite as good as his right. After looking at some graphs of the brain, it appears that where they operated controls the left side of his body. He was able to give a thumbs up one day when he was given commands. I'm taking all of this as a such a positive note since he is still sedated. He is currently stable but critical. All of his vitals are good, his BP and his internal cranial pressure goes in between a 1 and 4 now. He has a slight fever, about 38 degrees Celsius and it seems his heart rate goes up when his fever goes up. I guess I have a few questions. What happened to others when they woke up after their TBI? Was a fever typical? Did you see a lot of up and downs?
Hang in there Casey! Take every little bit of hope and hold on tightly. So many good things happened in the course of your brothers injury...he will get through this and with that kind of family following...well, he's a blessed young man.
Keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers Casey. Be sweet to yourself!
PeacenLove Always~Laurel aka gotTHATcall (we chatted the other day)
Hi Casey. Sounds like progress is being made. Be patient!