First of all I'd like to say thanks to people who told me that we were in early days. Even a month ago though (10 weeks after my wife's accident) I wasn't personally positive of much change - she was not showing much sign (to me at least) of regaining any real consciousness and was informally assessed as PVS/MCS(-).
Then, about three weeks ago she started to make what I called more deliberate/precise movements. Just simple stuff like moving her bedsheet around when there was a draught. Or on another occasion she took her nebuliser mask off and put it down at her side i.e. she didn't just bat an annoying thing off her face, she deliberately removed it and placed it.
Shortly after this the nurses told me they'd had a few words out of her, mainly Yes and No or words that they couldn't quite work out.
Fast forward to last week and I go in for a 'multi-disciplinary' meeting and they start by saying that she's made such marked progress in the week or so before that they were having to reset their assessments and goals. She had shown such awareness of self and objects that they had concluded that she was no longer suffering from a disorder of consciousness. They did caution me that she will have significant cognitive issues, confusion and almost certainly post-traumatic amnesia.
(and I guess I don't need to tell people here that post-traumatic amnesia is much more than just not remembering the accident).
Still she hadn't spoken to me though until Saturday when I was showing her some photos including one of the two of us on a recent holiday. It was only two words but she told me that it was 'us' in the photo which meant a lot.
Yesterday when I visited one of the physios told me in the corridor that she's had quite a 'chatty' session with her that morning and I had quite a chatty visit with her too. It was very much stop/start but she was definitely saying more than just Yes and No, even using short sentences but often hard to make out what she was saying. When I say stop/start, the speech and language therapist was with her at the start of my visit and asked her a number of times for a thumbs up (something she's started doing). He got one once but only once. Similarly when I asked her a question, she often wouldn't respond but sometimes she would. Finally when I left I asked her for a wave (something else the nurses tell me she's started doing and I've had once). I told her about three times I was going and asked her for a wave but didn't get one. Then as I was leaving her room, on instinct, I turned to look back and she was giving me a massive wave!
Today will be a big day as they can now take her off the ward into a small waiting area so I can take the kids to go and see her for the first time since the accident - Covid protocols in the hospital mean it's only been me so far.
She still has a long, long way to go and I know there will be good days and bad days but she is definitely heading in the right direction.
Missing my Daughter
recovery from a mild brain injury, post concussion syndrome and lapses
i'm scared about my mum...and needed somewhere to tell.
What my TBI did to my relationship with my sister
I fell in love with my neuropsychologist and I told her what I felt, now I can't stop thinking about her
