A few weeks ago I wrote a " New and Uncertain" post. There was so much support and understanding, everyone settled my mind and was incredibly supportive.
I was told a week and a half after my husband's collapse and resulting hypoxic injury that we should be saying goodbye as he would have no quility of life and live in a vegetative state possibly intubated as they thought he wouldn't be able to maintain his airway after his aspiration pneumonia which cleared and then returned once moved to a general ward. We had to fight this advice HARD to be heard and get an MP involved to stay the hospital's hand. Absolutely the worst few days of my life.
Guess this is now a bit of a follow up post. My husband is now in a specialist BI unit in Dundee where he has been for just over a week after spending some time in the neurosurgery ward while waiting for a bed to come available. He's coming on leaps and bounds in there, what a difference there is from him being in a general hospital to where he is now. The staff are amazing. His speech is improving daily, he has this week started doing daily walking and is up to 16m with some support on either side, and yesterday was up to cycling 2 miles on a specialist bike. He's no longer being moved in a hoist and is using a transfer board. Also is on a regular diet having his drinks thickened only slightly until he can take measured slow sips rather than gulp. Best of all he is still him and wants to be involved in decisions for the kids where he can...should our son spend his pocket money on some nonsense gaming content online etc.
So not quite the result they had originally projected and tried to force us into agreeing with.
I have had to post this just to remind myself and anyone who finds themselves in this awful, frightening (and down right intimidating) position as spouse/family member... that the brain is capable of amazing things, but to be patient and look at the small wins. I'm learning every day. And thank you to everyone else's posts. I'll keep reading and learning.