Posted on 11/07/2014 3:01:52 PM PST by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA
Arrowhead (John) fell off a 20’ ladder at work, onto his head, and has a severe brain injury!
Broke all the bones in his face and skull, broke his shoulder blade and some ribs.
His last post was 10/20 in the morning. He fell about 2pm that same day and was LifeFlighted to the hospital; then, after about 6 hours of surgery, he went directly to ICU. It was touch and go for days in critical condition.
After 2 weeks in ICU he has been transferred to a Specialty Neurological Rehab center in Austin, as of 11/3.
He can move his arms and legs, so no spinal injury, but he is not cognizant. Sometimes he can respond to “can you squeeze my hand?”, sometimes not. His daughter is getting ready to go back home.
The nurses are calling them every day. Small improvements are noticed, such as he sat up for 10 seconds today, but no one has a prognosis. Brain injuries heal how they heal, when the heal, if they heal....3 to 6 months at least.
PRAY HARD, please!!!! And spread the word to your prayer lists.
The for the report and God bless you
Thanks for the update, Kathy!
Arrow....you have just gotta get better soon! We miss you so
much around here! ((((hugs))))
Besides, as I said before, those crappy ain’t gonna catch themselves! *wink-wink*
Thanks for the update. I was hoping Arrowhead would bounce back a little quicker than this.
Thanks or the update. Prayers for you all.
Lord Jesus, give strength to Thy servant.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.
Thank you for the update on your dad. I always look forward to his posts as he’s located near us. Prayers and hugs sent.
Thank you so much for keeping us informed. Prayers continue...
Thank you for keeping us informed....continued prayers that ,though this seems slow going, Arrowhead will come out on the other side of this in due time. Slow is sometimes better....
Prayers continue for healing, strength, will power and peace.
Sending more prayers!
Thanks for the update. I’ll post to the Garden Thread on Friday.
Arrowhead, our prayers with you.... stay strong... unceasingly pray... God knows our prayers before we ask...
Dear Lord, thank you for hearing our cries and being with this family...take your child under your healing wing.... hear the prayers of your children.... and deliver upon your promises. Provide comfort and peace to this family and guide all those assisting in his recovery... although we are not worthy of asking such... your Son has told us that if boldly believe and ask through Him... You will hear, You will act and You will deliver...
Our God is an amazing God.... there is nothing that is beyond Him...
I wanted to send you an email update for the last couple of weeks. To be honest we are seeing very small progressions and sometimes there are weeks where there is not much to report. But I do have a few things I wanted to pass on to you and to the FReeper community!
Things are moving very slowly, and sometimes seem to be moving backwards, but hopefully we're taking 2 steps forward for every 1 step back. :) Dad's big achievement this week was that he was able to walk about 70 feet (with heavy assistance) during one of his physical therapy sessions. This was on a day that my mom was there, and this pleased the therapist and Mom very much. Also, the therapists have noted that Dad's posture is getting much better, he is able to sit up very straight in his wheelchair as opposed to slumping over or leaning to the side as before.
Dad's therapists (physical/occupational/speech) met with Mom this week to give her an update, saying that he is moving very slowly but still making small progressions. The neurologist on staff met with her as well and said this process is going to be very slow-and-go and that we are in for a long haul, but that the things he is seeing are relatively normal for this type of brain injury. Dad's voice has gone from being quite strong a couple of weeks ago to very weak, and it is increasingly difficult to hear him or understand what he is saying or trying to say. He also has an incredibly hard time focusing on a task or on a command/question, as his attention span is noticeably shorter. The therapists are having a hard time getting him to respond to commands these last few weeks or answer any questions, but we hope that with time that will come. We still do not have a long-term prognosis, as it is impossible at this time to say what the true nature of the injury is coupled with the fact that every traumatic brain injury patient is different.
The speech therapist did another "swallow test" recently, as the first one did not go as well as she had hoped. While he does have a strong swallow, and can repeat it, his epiglottis - the flap that covers the trachea and doesn't allow solids/liquids to go into the lungs - is not closing at all. Because of this, he is still on a feeding tube and will be for the forseeable future, as anything put into his mouth runs the risk of being coughed into his airway. If the epiglottis does start closing regularly, they will test again and reevaluate.
Please pass on our thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to pray and send messages and cards and pictures - we are so appreciative of those and Dad does enjoy looking at them. My aunt told me this week that she handed him one that was upside down, and he made sure he turned it right-side-up before he looked at it, so there's that!
Thank you all again so much for the continued love and support. It has been almost 2 months and we still need all the prayers we can get.
With Love and Hope,
The Schwausch Family - John, Linda, Lisa and Merfie Blue (the doggie, of course :))
If you'd like his address, just FReepmail me. And thank you to everyone for sending the family letters and prayers. Maybe you can find a postcard with your state on it...they could see how many states he could collect.Continued prayers for John and his Family.
Well looking at the lead in post of what happened and soon after it’s really quite amazing he’s come this far....eve then they said three to six months and that’s before they’ve managed to bring him to where he is now.
I find this enocuraging as my father-in-law had a brain injury and it too was slow healing....50/50 chance he would survive...but he had a full recovery...so it’s quite possible and we’ll just continue to pray this will be so for Arrow...
CW
Thank you so much Kathy for your diligence on keeping us updated with Arrow’s progress!
You’re a gem!
Prayers & cards continue.
The party is on when you come back Arrow!
Bump!
Mixed news, some good, some not so good.
But not like it was initially!
Wonder if card was received?
*fingers crossed, and scritches & pats for Merf*
Prayers continue.
Prayers continue....
Dear Arrowhead and family. We'll be keeping you all in our continued prayers. May you have a Merry Christmas, and may the New Year be bright, and bring with it, Arrowhead's complete recovery!!
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