Hi all,
I've come back into work for the first time in over a week. Not sure if that was a good choice or not, but we'll see.
Thank you again for your prayers for my work colleague's son. Gloria posted email updates on Andrew's brain surgery, which I was able to retrieve today.
TUESDAY:
Last Wednesday evening at 6:45PM our youngest son Andrew (age 26, pharmacy grad student at UF) was brought to the Shands ER/Trauma center. Someone had seen him down on the street with his bicycle and called 911. Andrew had taken quite a fall apparently – we still don’t know where it happened, what happened, etc. Unable as of yet to even get a police report on it. The police have his bike, and hopefully his backpack with his laptop (as we cannot find that yet). But they are not very “sharing”. We don’t even know if a car hit him and left! Tomorrow we try again with them. They won’t even give us his bike as we are not him. Their response is that they will hold it for 90 days.
Anyway, back to the accident. At the time of the accident he was wearing his helmet as we have learned. However, he struck his head so hard there was a hematoma on the left side which required immediate surgery upon arrival at the ER. They operated on him as a John Doe – did not take the time to even pull his wallet before surgery, it was that bad. They removed a section of his skull to release the pressure and left the skin flap over it, freezing the bone for later surgery to replace. After surgery they got his info and called us after 9PM that night.
He was put into the Neuro Intensive Care Unit at Shands and has been in a coma since, which it seems is common for this type of trauma and surgery. They are continuing to sedate him, as there are 3 important things to monitor after such surgery: keeping him seizure free, keeping the intercranial pressure below 20 and keeping him from having a fever. They are being successful with those 3 and the swelling is going down. They also say that days 4-7 are the worst. We are now in the trend of his sodium levels too high, which they have to carefully lower without messing up the other things related to the brain – all being done by doing trend analysis on the data they are seeing. Today they told us that tomorrow (Monday) an MRI will be done. This could tell us some of the info on brain damage, however it is also said that 2-4 weeks afterwards is where you really start to learn more about brain damage and how bad it is.
As they say, this will be a very long hospitalization. Fortunately he is in a very good place. We see more physicians than nurses. We have a whole slate of MDs who are looking after him – sometimes we feel like the TV show HOUSE. There are neurologists, trauma specialists, critical care team doctors, neurosurgeons, opthamologists, intensivist MD, facial bone doctors, etc. And they do a good job in collaborating and meshing all the info together. Talking about “big data” – they have reams of data on his meds, his analyses, his readings, etc., that the physicians read even from home. Andrew is so hooked up to things also – there’s IVs, feeding tube, breathing tube, EEG wires, cooling pads with chilled water to keep body temp down, even a camera to film him so they can correlate the readouts to any movements, as well as many other things.
FRIDAY:
We really appreciate everything that you have done for us during this critical time. The outpouring from all of you with emails, calls, cards, gift cards, and donations make us realize how blessed we really are. You never realize it until times like these. Thanks to everyone and most specifically, thank you for your prayers. That is helping us get through these trying times with our increased faith.
Today Andrew received a trachea tube, which replaced the breathing hose (which had gone down his throat). The surgery went well, and there will be another surgery (supposedly on Monday) to place the feeding tube into his abdomen. After today’s procedure it was noticed that Andrew was biting through the existing feeding tube (which goes down his throat). So, that tube was removed with a sturdier one put in, with the hopes that this will last until Monday’s surgery. However, it is noted that he is now biting through that one, but they are watching it carefully. He is mostly breathing on his own – he begins the breathing in part, then the machine assists him with the inhalation and also somewhat with the exhalation. It is hoped that by Monday that he will be fully breathing on his own, but with the trachea tube there as needed.
The strain of pneumonia he developed earlier this week is a fairly easy one to control with antibiotics. He is already responded very well to that treatment. He is still in a coma, and as they keep telling us, time will tell and that his young age is in his favor. We cannot say enough praise for the staff here at Shands. We are very fortunate that the accident happened where it did, and that Shands was the hospital for his emergency.
Thanks again for the many calls, cards, emails, donations, and most of all, your prayers. I will continue to keep in touch.
I've come back into work for the first time in over a week. Not sure if that was a good choice or not, but we'll see.
Thank you again for your prayers for my work colleague's son. Gloria posted email updates on Andrew's brain surgery, which I was able to retrieve today.
TUESDAY:
Last Wednesday evening at 6:45PM our youngest son Andrew (age 26, pharmacy grad student at UF) was brought to the Shands ER/Trauma center. Someone had seen him down on the street with his bicycle and called 911. Andrew had taken quite a fall apparently – we still don’t know where it happened, what happened, etc. Unable as of yet to even get a police report on it. The police have his bike, and hopefully his backpack with his laptop (as we cannot find that yet). But they are not very “sharing”. We don’t even know if a car hit him and left! Tomorrow we try again with them. They won’t even give us his bike as we are not him. Their response is that they will hold it for 90 days.
Anyway, back to the accident. At the time of the accident he was wearing his helmet as we have learned. However, he struck his head so hard there was a hematoma on the left side which required immediate surgery upon arrival at the ER. They operated on him as a John Doe – did not take the time to even pull his wallet before surgery, it was that bad. They removed a section of his skull to release the pressure and left the skin flap over it, freezing the bone for later surgery to replace. After surgery they got his info and called us after 9PM that night.
He was put into the Neuro Intensive Care Unit at Shands and has been in a coma since, which it seems is common for this type of trauma and surgery. They are continuing to sedate him, as there are 3 important things to monitor after such surgery: keeping him seizure free, keeping the intercranial pressure below 20 and keeping him from having a fever. They are being successful with those 3 and the swelling is going down. They also say that days 4-7 are the worst. We are now in the trend of his sodium levels too high, which they have to carefully lower without messing up the other things related to the brain – all being done by doing trend analysis on the data they are seeing. Today they told us that tomorrow (Monday) an MRI will be done. This could tell us some of the info on brain damage, however it is also said that 2-4 weeks afterwards is where you really start to learn more about brain damage and how bad it is.
As they say, this will be a very long hospitalization. Fortunately he is in a very good place. We see more physicians than nurses. We have a whole slate of MDs who are looking after him – sometimes we feel like the TV show HOUSE. There are neurologists, trauma specialists, critical care team doctors, neurosurgeons, opthamologists, intensivist MD, facial bone doctors, etc. And they do a good job in collaborating and meshing all the info together. Talking about “big data” – they have reams of data on his meds, his analyses, his readings, etc., that the physicians read even from home. Andrew is so hooked up to things also – there’s IVs, feeding tube, breathing tube, EEG wires, cooling pads with chilled water to keep body temp down, even a camera to film him so they can correlate the readouts to any movements, as well as many other things.
FRIDAY:
We really appreciate everything that you have done for us during this critical time. The outpouring from all of you with emails, calls, cards, gift cards, and donations make us realize how blessed we really are. You never realize it until times like these. Thanks to everyone and most specifically, thank you for your prayers. That is helping us get through these trying times with our increased faith.
Today Andrew received a trachea tube, which replaced the breathing hose (which had gone down his throat). The surgery went well, and there will be another surgery (supposedly on Monday) to place the feeding tube into his abdomen. After today’s procedure it was noticed that Andrew was biting through the existing feeding tube (which goes down his throat). So, that tube was removed with a sturdier one put in, with the hopes that this will last until Monday’s surgery. However, it is noted that he is now biting through that one, but they are watching it carefully. He is mostly breathing on his own – he begins the breathing in part, then the machine assists him with the inhalation and also somewhat with the exhalation. It is hoped that by Monday that he will be fully breathing on his own, but with the trachea tube there as needed.
The strain of pneumonia he developed earlier this week is a fairly easy one to control with antibiotics. He is already responded very well to that treatment. He is still in a coma, and as they keep telling us, time will tell and that his young age is in his favor. We cannot say enough praise for the staff here at Shands. We are very fortunate that the accident happened where it did, and that Shands was the hospital for his emergency.
Thanks again for the many calls, cards, emails, donations, and most of all, your prayers. I will continue to keep in touch.
