The rollercoaster ride continues. And one thing is for sure there is not a rollercoaster standing on this planet that can compare to this one. I got to the hospital to find that during the doctors rounds they thought Darryl was having seizures so they were sending him off for an EEG, which is neurology speak for a electrical test of brain waves to assertain whether the injury had induced epileptic seizures.
Hearing that I felt like I had been asked to swollow a brick . Having seen Darryl make some good improvements over the weekend I was devastated to think he might be having seizures. I was also gutted to hear that to stop the seizures they had given him sedatives, which meant when I saw him he was all ‘gaga’ again as if we were trapped in ground hog episde of One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest. I was hoping he wasn’t fitting but just stirred up from a combination of inability to cough, bright lights and the condition they call storming. More on that shortly.
Continue reading ‘Monday 11th May’
It is heartening to be able to say that Darryl has continued to stabilise and just sitting here beside him now he is resting well with no temperature, a heart rate of 58 and breathing calmly. What a difference it makes to the spirit to see him more settled, even if he is still in a coma.
Again today I was reminded of the seriousness of the situation despite some more encouraging signs over the last day or so when his doctor said that we are now back to where we were 5 days ago (in that his body is not fighting infection and can focus on resolving the trauma to his brain). He stressed it is still a case of wait and see in terms of his conciousness and we just don’t know where that’s going to go.
Continue reading ‘Sunday 10th May’
Well it seems that Darryl is beginning to make himself at home at the HDU. He has pictures on the wall, cards all over the place, some of his favourite trinkets spread about his ’space’. But more than anything he had what I would describe as pretty relaxed day.
It started with yet another chest X-Ray to check on the progress of his chest infection, but on this occasion the result came back clear. Excellent, finally a real positive that felt so tangible I could almost give it a hug! I had thought that things looked on the mend because a little earlier in the morning Catherine and I who were in there with him and we were treated to something quite unique and certainly eye opening.
Continue reading ‘Saturday 9th May’
Darryl had a more settled day today and while his temperature is still popping up quite high a lot of the times he was more relaxed and suffered less from the spasms he was having yesterday. The day started with him being strapped to the tilt table with him slowly being stood up to 45 degrees. His blood pressure went a little out of kilter so they didn’t raise him any higher but he still coped well with it.
Later in the day he also got hoisted out of bed onto a lazy boy chair complete with his tusty head gear. He looked pretty comfortable I’d have to say and so he should. I found out today that the cosy chair he has been sitting in would set you back around $10,000. Needless to say we aren’t planning on getting a set of those for his bedroom in anticipation for his return! I’m sure he’d rather perch on a beer crate. Waikato draft of course, his favourite, believe it or not.
Continue reading ‘Friday 8th May’
And so one day becomes another and Darryl appears to be blissfully unaware of the emotional rollercoaster going on around him. I joked with my brother Len, who selflessly came down again to help us out today, that if and when Darryl is well enough to know what’s been going on here I ‘m going make him pay! Now that’s a Tui billboard in the making. I would gladly forgo a lifetime worth of fatherly lectures just to see him smirking knowingly back at me as he does, as if to say “no big deal Dad”.
Today went a bit pear shaped as they say, as Darryl was scheduled to have what they call a ‘peg’, put in his stomach. This is a tube they put into his stomach wall that they can pass food through directly into his stomach. This means they can remove the feeding tube that runs down his nose and the back of his throat. It is a better long term option for feeding, albeit I don’t anticipate they will be piling Darryl’s favourite meals of cottage pie or roasts down it any time soon.
Continue reading ‘Thursday 7th May’
Today was tough. Darryl is now in state of ground hog day while we wait to see how he responds as the swelling and bruising in his brain resolves. I spent a lot of today and yesterday trying to quiz as many of his medical team as I could on the ins and outs of his status, other examples to compare Darryl to and possible progress for him. It is an experience I would compare to asking for your teacher to read out your school ‘C’ results when you know that your marks are nowhere close to what you need them to be. You want to know but you know the answer is going to hurt. It just leaves you feeling hollow.
In short Darryl has gone a little quiet in terms of his responses to commands and has started displaying other common and disconcerting characteristics of serious head injuries. For example his muscles are starting to tighten up and he has quite bad muscle spasms as a result. There are other physical complications that go along with lying immobile for such a long time which is why they are now hoisting him out of bed regularly and sitting him in a chair. The body heals better when it is upright and moving about.
Continue reading ‘Wednesday 6th May’
It was another day in the life of a coma patient today with Darryl resting quietly seeming quite settled. I should point out that while it is amazing Darryl has survived the initial injury there is really no telling at all how this will play out.
Even the most seasoned veterans in this field readily admit that it is a very inexact science and they have no real idea when he may wake and indeed if he will wake up.
Since this tragedy we have heard from so many who have similar experiences with loved ones who have suffered devastating brain injuries and it is easy to feel a sense of heightened hope when they tell you of the fact that their loved ones were written off but made miraculous recoveries after prolonged periods in a coma. Unfortunately as I have discovered there are just as many horror stories that didn’t end so well it’s just they don’t get repeated as often for obvious reasons.
Continue reading ‘Tuesday 5th May’
Darryl was fairly on the move today with another MRI scan and later this afternoon he was hoisted out of his bed and put in a lazy boy chair where he sat more upright.
Yesterday he had a chest X-Ray and a CT scan to rule out any potential issues as they seem to think he is not progressing as he should given his initial positive repsonses to commands.
In any event the scans didn’t show up anything alarming as far as I have been able to find out, although he still has quite a bad chest infection which they are working hard to resolve before it develops into something worse. I haven’t got the results of the MRI as yet so don’t know what’s happening there. HDU is quite a lot less intensive than in the critical care ward where it is one to one. There are two nurses to a maximum of five patients and it takes a little bit of adjusting from a parents point of view.
So in all today there has been no real progress although to me he does look more alert – if you can be alert in a coma. He seems restful and his body looks fine so I hope his brain is also repairing while he’s off in ‘lala’ land.
Brenna read him another story tonight and she seems to be coping very well considering. I have been fending off the media all day who have picked up on the preventable head injury line.
The amusing if not tragically sad aspect of today was seeing Darryl sitting there motionless in an armchair with bloody rugby head gear on! They actually fitted him with head gear to protect his skull which has a large piece of bone missing . It seems so sadly ironic that the last time he had rugby head gear on was when he collapsed into a coma on the sideline having worn it to ‘protect’ his head on the rugby field.
It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. At the moment the crying seems to be the automatic reposonse.
Please share the link to this site with others who may be interested to keep up to date on Darryl.
Thanks again all.
Mike
From the Wednesday on, the thin thread of hope we were hanging on to seemed to grow a little thicker. One of the first real ‘positive’ signs was when I heard a nurse yelling at Darryl in the early hours of the morning to give her a “thumbs up”. When I returned to his bedside a few minutes later I was too scared to ask if he had responded, really feeling it couldn’t possibly be achievable. A little later on his nurse calmly explained that she was pleased he had given her a thumbs up on command. I just about wet myself!! What a breakthrough.
Over the first few days I had spent a lot of time telling each of his nurses and the doctors that Darryl had a heart like and ox and the stubbornness of a mule. That if anyone was going to have the mental and physical strength to get out of this situation it would be him. I wanted them to know they were dealing with a very very determined and strong-willed young man who wouldn’t give up! I could tell in the early days that they were listening but not really believing that that would be enough, or that it would make a difference. It’s not hard to see why. So many who come into that ward don’t make it, despite their world-class care.
Continue reading ‘Wednesday 29th April – Sunday 3rd May’
On the afternoon of ANZAC day, Saturday the 25th of April 2009, our much loved son, brother, grandson and friend of so many, Darryl Sabin, entered a monumental battle of his own, the fight for his life.
Darryl who will be 19 in September, was playing his second game of rugby since suffering a serious head injury in March 2007 while playing for Eastern under 18’s. On this latest occasion he was playing for Te Hapua, at Te Hapua and true to form he was the team captain and leading from the front.
Continue reading ‘Saturday 25th April – Tuesday 28th’
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