He has been in intensive care ever since the accident, has had a stent fitted and has had a tracheotomy. He is now breathing for himself and opens his eyes but is not focusing nor is he really responding to his fiancee or mum when they speak to him.
We love him so much and it is so very hard to stay positive. I just wondered if any one had any advice for us? His insurance company are refusing to pay to fly him home and I also wondered if anyone had any idea of where we might get some kind of help to get him home when he is stable enough to travel.
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Beckno
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It must be so hard when he is so far away, the best bet as you say is to get him home, as Biker says Headway will hopefully point you I the right direction, it will help him to be nearer you all too, take care and keep positive x
Stay positive-my OH was the same , stent, coma, ventolator, no responses (after car accident).He was in hospital for 3 months but is now recovering well. It is slow progress and just look for improvements each week not each day.it is the worst thing possible and i wouldnt wish this on anyone . x
It must be an incredibly difficult time for you and your family. Please do take the advice of bikerlifestyle and give our helpline team a call. The helpline is open Monday-Friday from 9-5 and can be contacted by phone (0808 800 2244) or email (helpline@headway.org.uk).
Has anyone approached the Embassy regarding his homecoming.......I would think that's the best place to start.
Please don't be disheartened by your nephew's lack of responses; I had a brain haemorrhage and whilst in intensive care I thought my daughter was my neighbour. It can take a lot longer than ten days for a damaged brain to start functioning again.
I'm so sorry about the distance between you, and sincerely hope a solution will be found. I hope, more importantly, that your nephew shows some significant signs of improvement very soon.
Please keep us updated and try to keep your hopes up. Regards, cat x
it's so early for him in terms of recovery. My thoughts are with you as I also would never wish this upon anyone. Knowing Cyprus well, medical care is of a high standard so, at least until you get him home, I imagine he will be well looked after. Please stay positive and keep in touch on this forum as the support you will get will help you through this difficult time xx
My dad recently had a SAH and so I can relate to how you're feeling. We were told that the most important thing you can do at the moment is be there for each other - by looking after each other you'll would be strong enough to support him when he comes home. Its still early days so please try and stay positive! Besh wishes to all of you x x
I just wanted to tell my story as it may give you hope and it is best to stay positive and take one day at a time and not think too much about the bad things that could happen as you can just deal with them if they do happen and not waste time thinking about them before
My mum was hit by a car crossing the road and landed head first on the tarmac 18 months ago. She lost consciousness within minutes and was rushed to A&E. She had a very severe brain injury and the worst coma score you could get. The outcome looked bleak and the police started treating the accident as a fatality as they were sure it would be one. Mum was transferred to a regional specialist intensive care unit where the could do nothing for her except insert a pressure monitor into her scull, put her on life support and wait. Once the initial danger of her brain swelling dangerously subsided and it was clear she still wasn't showing any signs of life the doctors began saying things like "do not resuscitate under any circumstances" and our hope hit rock bottom. But after a week she started to open her eyes and try to breathe herself. After a couple more days she started randomly looking around the room but not at people with any recognition - this sounds like the stage your nephew is at now.
I just wanted you to know that after a few days my mum got over that stage and moved onto speaking to us, knowing who we were roughly but forgetting most things about us like how old we were and what we did for a living. She also couldn't remember things like the fact that her father was dead and kept asking why he wasn't visiting! In addition to this she was confused about being in hospital, getting angry, plotting her escape and being disagreeable. At this time I looked at the Headway website and learned that all this behaviour was normal and called Post Traumatic Amnesia and would typically last twice the length of the coma. This was true and within a fortnight she was making significantly more sense, had remembered why her dad was unlikely to visit and had started to cooperate with the medical staff and family members more.
Six weeks later she was released from hospital to continue her rehab as an outpatient. 18 months later she is independent and only struggles with some communication skills and concentration; this is due to the part of the brain that was damaged (frontal lobe) she would have had different issues if a different part of the brain had taken the impact. She is very lucky!
So stay positive, we thought we had lost mum or that she would be several disabled for the rest of her life but we needn't have worried so much as she has come so far. What is on your nephew's side that wasn't on my mum's is age. A younger brain adapts far better after a brain injury that a middle-aged one does.
I also would advise getting in touch with headway about when and how he could be taken home. If that had been my mum by week five or six I think we would have been able to take her one a plane with us of we had had to.
Hi everyone - sorry I haven't been in touch to let you know how we've been getting on. Time has flown by and it's now a month since my nephew's accident.
It hasn’t been the easiest of months, but the good news is our boy is home. He didn’t need an air ambulance and was able to fly as a medical passenger on a commercial flight with his mother, his fiancée, a paramedic and a nurse. The company we used to fly him home were amazing and whilst they looked after my nephew they supported all of us through this horrendous experience, sending us emails at each stop on his journey home to let us know where they were. My nephew – by all accounts – kept the staff on their toes by trying throughout the flight, to sit up and press the button to call the air hostess. He was transferred to hospital in Scotland and has spent another couple of weeks in ITU/HDU here.
His recovery, as you all warned me, has been so slow. I speak to my sister a couple of times a day and every day I want to hear that she has had a conversation with him, that he hugged her tightly and told her he loved her, that they went for a stroll in the hospital garden – but it doesn’t happen.
Apart from his brain injury he needed an operation on an undiagnosed broken jaw, he has a broken bone in his ankle, three fractured vertebrae and just to cap it all he has an infection similar to MRSA. He’s been out of intensive care for a few days now and I have been to see him. In fact he thought his sister, at the ripe old age of 22 was me! Now I ain’t no spring chicken and she is less than half my age. I love that story – she doesn’t!!
Hard doesn’t explain how difficult emotionally it has been, his tracheostomy has been removed but he is not, yet, the boy…….the man I knew. I can be strong for others but I know that I, and I am just his aunty, would not have got through this without my brothers. My nephew’s immediate family have touched me with their strength and courage. I’ve tried to do all I can for them since the accident but I am so very aware that we are just at the very beginning of this journey.
Our family, I am the youngest of six children, 3 boys and 3 girls, have always been extremely close but this experience has brought us even closer. I, at home in Scotland, was supporting my sister in Cyprus, mostly via daily SKYPE calls and Facebooking, and letting our brothers and sister know how things were going via text but every other day or so one of my brothers, in Essex, would phone, just to see how I was doing. I wish I could find the words to explain to them what that meant. It cost just under £14,000 to fly my nephew home. His uncle, my brother, covered the cost so our aim now is to pay that back. We have loads of fundraising activities going on so that my nephew and his family don’t have to worry about it. I - being really, REALLY, scared of heights – and 9 other friends and family members are abseiling off the Forth Rail Bridge in October to raise money. My brother sponsored me and then gave me a further donation for the laughs he has had at the thought of my abseiling!
What makes it even more amazing is that my 9 other nieces and nephews are all raising money for their cousin. Two are joining us in the abseil, some are planning on doing a sponsored cycle from Essex to Scotland to see us abseil, they’re planning bake sales, quizzes, round the island walks, etc. Wherever they are, however old they are, they are supporting us in whatever way they can.
I love all my family more than anyone will ever know and I thank my lucky stars every day for all of them; those who can tell me they love me too and those who can’t ……yet. x
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