Stories of recovery from head injury?

[JessieMcJessie]

My 40 year old brother fell from a height in a workplace accident three weeks ago. He was lucky to survive but has suffered a spinal cord injury, multiple spinal fractures, skull fractures and bruising to the brain. He didn’t have to have an operation on his brain and has now been moved out of ICU to a general ward.
We were so grateful to see him wake up but a week later he still can’t take in that he had an accident, doesn’t know his address and is being very angry about how uncomfortable he is. He has no short term memory but does recognise his wife and me and other people from pictures, and remembers things like his wife being a notoriously bad driver. He can’t really converse, and only sometimes answers questions. So he’s there but not there, IYSWIM. He needs spinal rehab but the spinal unit won’t take him till his cognitive ability improves and now we’re just in limbo with him lying in a hospital bed angry and confused.

The doctors were really good when he was in ICU but nobody seems to be interested in telling us anything now and we have no idea if he is ever going to regain anything approaching normal cognitive ability. I called the Headway (Brain injury charity) helpline today but nobody was available.

Can anyone with experience of head injury tell us how you or your relative progressed towards recovery?

I don’t wish to sound glum but you should prepare yourself for the fact that’s he may not make a full recovery, of all the brain injured people I’ve come into contact with they’ve all suffered some sort of long term impact.

Don’t worry Fission, we are under no illusions, but we do hold out hope that he will at least get to a point where he knows what day it is and can hold a conversation and doesn’t ramble about things like getting food for the dog (he has never owned a dog).

I’ve read up some more on Post Traumatic amnesia now, most guidance says it will pass but nobody can predict when, and the longer it goes on the worse the long term effects are likely to be. It’s just so heartbreaking watching and waiting and wondering what the future holds.

Hi Jessie, sorry for what you’re going through, so hard. is he being moved wards very often? That can be very disorientating. I’ve worked with many people with brain injuries and they’ve made slow but steady recoveries. However, they can’t tell you to what extent he will recover because it’s early days. I know it’s hard to hear that it’s early days but time is important. Is he getting any input on the ward from Physio and OT? On a personal note, I had a non traumatic brain injury, although very mild. Happy to talk in more detail about that via PM. Take care.