Boyfriend on ventilator and heavily sedated.

[Brizzygirl06]

3 days ago my boyfriend was put in a medically induced coma due to aspirated pneumonia. He was on extra oxygen support from a NOxBox and today he was taken off of it. Unfortunately he still has no pupil response but he cries when I sing to him and he squeezes my hand when I tell him I love him. I just need someone to say they related and their person woke up fine afterwards. I am really terrified that there will be damages to his brain or to his cognitive functions when he wakes up. Has anyone experienced something similar?

[Signingfun]

I was in a coma for 3 months. Waking up was difficult. It's not like they show you on tv - one minute a person is in a coma and the next minute they are awake, alert and having an easy conversation. It took me time to come out of the coma. I came out with no cognitive damage. It's a very strange experience. My husband stayed very positive when he talked to me and it helped.

Anne

[Sepsur]

As Signingfun said - it’s not like the movies where people wake from a long coma and jump around the place.

Our bodies use up6.5k calories a day in trauma - often converting the protein in muscle to use - I woke up weak as a kitten & needing 11 days to properly come round.

[Lux95]

It took me 4 days to fully wake up after 11 days sedated. Sedation is rough on the body and mind, so it takes time. I don't know what signs are typical but how he has responded to you seems like a good sign to me. Sedation often puts our minds in an "alternate reality". Because we aren't aware of what is happening to us physically, the mind makes up other scenarios - usually quite far fetched. He may be reacting to you in that context, but I think that is good. Talk to him, hold his hand - it can only help.

[TaIaV]

I do not have a personal experience with coma, but I have been at similar bedsides with loved ones. Massage therapists told me that it is important to transmit peace and healing with your touch. It is hard to do this in the early days, when we are stressed and panicked by the events that led to the illness or injury. I would just share that I found it helpful to transcend the panic by focusing on the love and healing that I wanted my loved ones to feel; this benefited both of us. I wish you both well. The messages before this provide a lot of hope.

[Clunk]

hi Brizzygirl, i can relate to you - my husband was put into a coma in late January after sudden seizures and a brain bleed. We struggled to wake him up for 2.5 days - trying multiple times a day to wean him off (at first he wasn’t responding, then later he would get so agitated his blood pressure skyrocketed) until the doctors added a calming drug and he finally started to slowly wake up. He was fully awake after 2 more days and very delirious.

Until i was in your shoes, i had no idea that weaning people off sedation is actually really tough. But you’re doing the right things by talking and singing to him and holding his hand - my husband appreciated that so much. I also played music to him and did some of our at-home rituals to try to help him wake up (like conditioning his beard etc).

Unfortunately sedation is no joke and my husband was put back into the coma due to bad ICU delirium - which broke my heart - but when we woke him up 2 days later, it went much better than the first wake-up. He couldn’t sleep in the hospital so we got him discharged as soon as possible after 2 more days and as soon as he waa home, his delirium started clearing. It’s now been 2 months since then and he is well mentally but still regaining his physical strentgh and mobity (he lost 20kg) - we were doing brain games and cognitive exercises early on to help reduce brain fog etc.

i say all this just to try to share how up and down this can be. I was at the absolute rock bottom so many times (also worried about brain damage) and desperate for help (esp once i did research and realised it can be hard to wake from sedation) and now we talk and laugh about some of his experiences from the coma.

It’s good that he’s off oxygen, just keep making sure the doctors keep weaning him off sedation regularly and do prod them about whether their strategy needs to change. Mine added that calming drug because my husband started to get very agitated when weaned too low. Also be prepared for the wake up itself to be a process (it took 2 days for him the first time once they started weaning, and about 18h the second time - from him starting to open his eyes and move to actually being fully awake)

I realy hope this helps and if you have any questions or want further words of support pls don’t hesitate to reach out. Try to also take care of yourself as much as you can!

[FamilyHistorian]

hi you can see what happened to me in my profile. But I was in a coma for nearly two months. They tried a number of times to bring me round but I was ready. Also my family were told twice I wouldn’t make it.

Critical Care Support Network have a lot of advice and in particular they have a relatives group that meets every Tuesday at 8 pm BST on zoom.

cc-sn.org/

[Copse77]

yes I also went through this with my brother. It is as said nothing like shown in the films but a rollercoaster. I will send you a link now to our story written to provide hope to other families.

[Copse77]

ecmofamilysupport.com/ecmo-...

This is our family story. I hope for a good recovery for your loved one.

[Signingfun]

My husband played Christian Music while I was in the coma. Whatever you can do to keep things positive is so important. While I was in the coma I could hear what was going on in the room. Sometimes I could understand what was being said, but could not respond. Other times I had long elaborate dreams about what had been said in my room. Once I woke up it took a lot of conversations with my husband to figure out what was real and what was a dream, because it all felt real.

Anne