Whenever I first saw him in the ER, he was talking. I heard his voice before I saw him, and that relieved my initial fears. He was in a neck brace, but other than that (and a few scratches and cuts on his head), he looked ok.When he saw me he said that he was really thirsty and hot. Could I get him something to drink? The nurse told me I could not give him anything to eat or drink because his CT scan showed that he had bleeding on the brain and they didn't know whether or not he would need surgery.
Then he asked if I could take off his helmet.
He wasn't wearing a helmet.
Then he said, "I'm really hot! Can someone turn on a fan?"
Next he asked for a drink of water.
Three minutes later he asked if I could take off his helmet and turn on the fan.
It went like this the entire time we were in the ER.
They did some X-rays and found he had a fractured clavicle (collarbone) and a fracture scapula (shoulder blade). Neither of those were bad enough to operate. The initial diagnosis I got from the neurosurgeon was that he had a concussion and that they would do several CT scans until they were sure the bleeding had stopped.
Cecil kept asking us to turn on the fan and please could he have some water. After the doctor was sure that his neck was not injured in any way, the neck brace came off and he stopped asking us to take off his helmet.
Every 15-30 minutes during that first 24 hours, Cecil kept asking me why he was hurting, and I had to tell him that he had been in a motorcycle accident. His memory improved from every 3 minutes in the ER to every 10 minutes that first evening and every 15 minutes the next morning. Even with the progression, this really bothered me. I kept asking the nurses why this was happening and they all said it was probably just the medication.
In addition to the problems with his memory, we realized that he couldn't walk. When he stood up, it was like his feet were glued to the floor. A physical therapist came to help him move out of the bed and sit in a chair, but Cecil could not even walk two feet from the bed to the chair.
On the 24th, (Friday) the attending physician told me he thought Cecil would be discharged over the weekend. This unnerved me. He could not remember what day it was, where he was, why his shoulder and head hurt so badly, and he couldn't walk. He couldn't even walk to the bathroom.
And the doctor wanted to send him home in a few days?!
Over the weekend he started remembering longer periods of time. He went from remembering 30 minutes, to an hour. All the talk about sending him home never came to fruition. The physical therapist came again on Saturday, and I learned how to help him stand up and shuffle to the chair.
On Monday, the therapist was working with Cecil when the neurosurgeon came in to check on him. When he saw the way Cecil was swaying while he stood, the neurosurgeon immediately ordered an MRI.
The MRI showed two areas of his brain that had been damaged. The neurologist told us Cecil had a sheer in his corpus callosum (I had no idea what that was) but that his prognosis was good. Since Cecil is such a highly intelligent person, the neurosurgeon thought he could most likely gain back 80 to 90 percent of what had been lost. He spoke with us for about 10 minutes, but most of it went over my head. After he left, Cecil started crying. He knew something was wrong but he didn't understand anything the doctor had just told us.
By Thursday, one week from the accident, he still couldn't consistently tell you what had happened to him, where he was, or what day it was. We coached him on these things every day, hoping that it would help him remember. I knew it was way more complicated than just short term memory loss, but I had hope that what the neurologist said was true. He remembered everything from before the accident, even the events from the morning of the accident. When people came to visit him, he talked to them like nothing was wrong. Everyone was amazed at how well he seemed to be doing. He just wasn't retaining anything from the days following the accident. He could not remember any of the nurses names, even when they were in and out of his room every hour for 12 hour shifts. He had the same CNA for 5 days in a row, and every day it was like meeting her for the first time. It reminded me of the movie with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, "Fifty First Dates." And he still couldn't walk without assistance.
On March 1st he was discharged to a rehabilitation hospital that had a special floor just for people with brain injuries. At this point, I still had not heard the term "brain injury" or "traumatic brain injury." I just knew he had a sheer in his corpus callosum...whatever that was. I was thankful that the neurosurgeon had referred us to the rehab hospital instead of just sending us home like the attending physician wanted to do.
The rehabilitation hospital did a lot to educate both of us about his injuries. It was there that I learned what a brain injury (BI) was, why he couldn't remember what had happened or why he couldn't walk. He had post traumatic amnesia, and he had injured the part of his brain that helped with balance. He had also injured the part of the brain that processes information, controls emotion and gives good judgement. We spent a lot of time in cognitive, physical and occupational therapy. By the end of his stay, he was walking normally and had his short term memory back for the most part, but he still lacked the ability to focus on a task or concentrate on even a 30 minute television program.
After being discharged on March 16th, he started a special outpatient program that specialized in TBI. Here we learned even more about the extent of his BI. Because he is missing roughly 10 days in his memory, he is categorized as having a severe traumatic brain injury. He injured four different areas of his brain; the left frontal lobe (judgement, memory, problem solving and social part of the brain), and the hippocampus (the memory forming, organizing and storing part of the brain) and his left and right temporal lobes (memory, language, personality and certain inhibitions). He had severe damage to the frontal lobe and hippocampus, and moderate damage to his temporal lobes.
Most of the patients in therapy with him had been injured far worse than Cecil. They were so happy for him when his neurologist cleared him for driving only six weeks after his accident. Considering the amount of trauma to his brain, he was recovering much more quickly than most of the other patients in therapy with him. I was continually encouraged by his progress and kept holding on to hope that we could have our old life back in a few months.
Cecil doesn't remember anything that happened from February 23 until March 1, and only a few pieces here and there from March 1 to March 5. For the first eight weeks, every day his memory would improve noticeably, but since then, progress has slowed more and more. The doctors have told him that at the six month mark, statistically, he will have recovered about 80% of his new normal. Also, statistically, after about two years, he will probably not have much improvement.
Today, August 23, 2012, marks six months to the day from the accident.
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