Daily Archive for June 4th, 2009

Thursday 4th June

Published on 4 June 2009 in Progress. 11 Comments

Another good day for Darryl.  His passive stretches this morning showed he had some increased range of motion in his arms which have been so tight from all the storming over the past weeks.  The physio was very pleased with the added flexibility and range of motion, but it comes at a painful price.  Darryl gave a solid thumbs up when I enquired as to whether he was hurting.  To his credit it was followed by another thumb when I asked if he could handle it.

He slept after that until his 11 oclock session up at the gym.  He was obviously having a good rest, because having been hoisted off his bed into a chair, wheeled up to the gym, stretched and manipulated, then strapped to a tilt table and stood upright before he finally woke up.  Once he did though, he was responding well and his eyes stayed open more than we have seen before.  Still only a little open, but it was his doing.  That is significant as it shows the nerves in this critical area of the brain stem which have been damaged by the pressure as his brain in the hours after the injury, are showing signs of healing.

His eyes were also following moving objects better than yesterday and his arm raising above his head was better also.  The highlight came though when my mother and father arrived in the gym and I said to Darryl to show them his 1,2,3,4,5 fingers up.  Then the physio said give your Grandma a wave – which he then did!   And so another milestone is reached.

Today instead of beerotherapy I took his greenstone dog whistle to the gym which he managed to hold carefully in his fingertips.  He wasn’t able to get it to his lips, but at one stage it fell and he managed to close his fingers to catch it with the fine string tied to it.  That was impressive.  I popped it in his mouth, and while he couldn’t blow it because he still has a trachie in his throat rediverting air, but he tried and I could see his chest rising and falling as he gave it a go.

On his way back from the gym I asked the physios to take the ‘long way home’  so I could show Darryl the outside of the facility.  We stopped a couple of times and popped his eyes open so we could show him the lay of the land and then the house which he is staying in.   His eyes were taking it all in, one at a time.  We then showed him the kitchen, the hallway and the entrance to his room.  Hopefully this will help give him a sense of his surroundings until he can keep his eyes open himself.

On returning to his room he went back to bed and slept well all afternoon until 5 pm.  The good rest continued into the evening.  I can’t tell you how rewarding it is just to have quiet restful sleep.  All the nurses and staff have commented on these small gains and his increasing level of comfort.

Tomorrow we start trachie weaning.  This involves slowly removing functions of the trachie and if he copes with it and continues to swallow secretions and keep his oxygen saturation up then the tube in his throat will come out.  That will make a difference because he is constantly knocking and raking across it with his right hand.  So much so that there has been quite a bit of blood coming up from it.

So the journey continues and Darryl remains steadfast in his task.  The last few weeks have taken me to places I didn’t know existed and shattered the world that I shared with Darryl.  But little by little he is putting back the pieces into some semblence of what was.  I am witnessing a slow motion evolution of the human spirit from the ashes of devastation.

I often wonder why something like this could happen to someone like this, the seeming injustice and cruelty of it all.  I have so often tried to convince myself that this is part of the test of life and that life tends to deliver what will be the measure of those ‘tested’.  So it would be that Darryl would have this test of tests, the true test of himself, body, mind, spirit and soul.  But as you will have read, this has also angered me because this is a test no-one should have to endure.

The reality is however, that once the dye is cast  the choice is simple.  Stand and fight or laydown and surrender, the former has and will always be running through Darryl’s veins, no question.  And I celebrate each victory he has in this fight as reinforcement of that.

I take my hat off to you mate.  Your fight is something we all share in, but more importantly we all learn from.  We learn about the power of the human spirit to rise to the test, to never lay down and to unravel hope from the twisted shreds of fate.  I am proud to know you and a better man for having you in my life.

Dad

Wednesday 3rd June

Published on 4 June 2009 in Progress. 20 Comments

What a delight it is to see Darryl sleeping deeply, restfully and calmly.  You can almost see the healing going on it is so blissful.  It may sound something unremarkable but for five and a half weeks Darryl has battled the storming which has plagued him.  Restful sleep is something almost forgotten to him.  So to see it now is something I want to bottle!

Another positive development came today when Darryl was loaded up into another lazy boy of the hot rod variety and was wheeled outside for the first time in almost weeks.  It doesn’t end there, as he was simply in transit to the gym, Jim, but not as we know it!  Wow, what a delight it was to see him being stretched on the large benchs they have there.  One of the physios got behind him and while sitting on a swiss ball, with another locking his feet down to the floor, his torso was twisted pulled and stretched, all of which was welcomed with a series of thumbs up.  Again, it was good to see Darryl getting some sort of physical work which I know he has literally been aching for.

Of course the trick is to not overdo it, as he tires very quickly and too much can be too exhausting which then causes set backs.  So it’s baby gym steps, but good stuff all the same.

During the session he was able to keep his eyes open (just partially open) at times which is a great sign that the damage to the 3rd nerve that controls so much of the eye  function, including opening, may be starting to resolve.  We hope this is the case, but time will tell.  We are spending a lot of time opening his eyes for him and stimulating some sort of normal eye opening and blinking activities to see if the neurons responsible for this will start to spark up.

As mentioned earlier we are now confident he has risen from the coma and is in a low level of conciousness but he is conscious and now we are getting the second part of the deal, the eyes open, a fraction of a millimeter at a time.  It funny how I have come to measure success in such tiny gradients, but success in respective and any amount of it is a damn sight better than none at all!

This morning for example I arrived to see Darryl awake and we went through our usual greeting process of thumbs up.  The night before I had been wondering at about 3 am if in fact Darryl could also signal with other fingers on his hand, other than his thumb.  In any event I said to Darryl that to give his thumb a break how about he held up two fingers – bang, up went his forefinger and index finger.  OK then how about three – bang, up went three.  Four then – bang, and then five.  Sharp as a dart.  I surprised the physios with this at the gym also.  Just as before he repeated his newest party trick.  Then to add a little to that I asked him to raise his hand toward the ceiling, which he did.  He could only get his hand to just above his head given the toning in his arms restricting his muscle extension, but it was purposeful and controlled.

Then we took it to another level with him reaching for a small coloured cone and gripping it and then passing it back to me.  He could only reach 8 inches or so, but he did it in a controlled and purposeful manner and it was excellent control.  I suggested to the physio that there may be another motivator that I had tried two and a half weeks ago in hospital.  It was a little of an eyebrow raiser when I said I had a stubbie of beer that  I used as a trigger for senses earlier.  They said to grab it, which I duly did.

I opened one of his eyes and put it out in front of him.  “Here you go Darryl, have a beer”.  To which he slowly reached out, gripped it and slowly brought the top of it to his mouth!!!  I swear it if it didn’t have to cap on it he would have had a swig as well.  Brilliant!

This may sound a little ‘odd’, but we had been told that familiar smells were a good thing to help stimulate consciousness and the two most ’stirring’ smells I could think of for Darryl was his smelly cattle dogs and a fresh beer.  So I snuck a stubbie into the hospital a couple of weeks ago, popped  the top and put it under his nose and told him to sniff.  What a reaction!  He sniffed alright.  He just about snorted the top inch of the stubbie and his arms moved all over the place. 

I said Darryl do you know what that is and the thumbs up rocketed up and just about poked his own eye out.  It was the best one we had seen ever.  A day later the same process but with a nice coffee illicited the same reaction although not quite as enthusastically.  But very definitive responses.   I know it’s unconventional but if it floats the boat it’s worth a go.   

So the physios were impressed by his control with the beer, but later I was reminded that it is an alcohol and drug free environment, so that is the last Darryl will see of Dad’s beerotherapy!  I’ll use his dog whislte, because he’s done the same with that. 

Aside from this he was able to look at two different coloured cones and track his eyeball on command to each colour.  Another milestone to add to his slowly growing list.

It is slow and the successes are in some cases minute, but it fills me with pride and refuels the tanks with hope and possiblity.  It was a very good first week in the rehab and while I am more often scared to celebrate too confidently success for fear of a set back that can often follow, it is hard not to feel encouraged that there are more forward steps than not, small or not.

Darryl, the  belief I have in you is matched only by the love I feel for you.  The hope and possiblity I hold onto are like keys to open the doors that have closed in front of you, but I know in my heart that your courage and will are really the ‘key’ and there is no door that you can’t open with that.

Keep passing the test of you mate.

Dad