Dealing with brother in ICU, dealing with Sepsis, stroke, cardiac arrest and seizures, please help!

[kede]

Hello, My brother has been in ICU for 8 weeks. He caught sepsis because of a infected heart valve with vegetations on it. The sepsis led to a cardiac arrest, a major stroke, kidney failure, seizures. All this has effected his brain. We are devastated because of whats happened. We are praying and hoping he gets better some how. Doctors have given him a very poor prognosis. We don’t know what to do. He has been in a coma from day one. When they slowly took him off sedation he did not wake up. Finally after few weeks he opened his eyes but would just stare with no response or movement. He would just go back to sleep in a deep coma. Can anyone help us if you are going through something similar. On top of all this my beautiful brother has a learning disability which makes everything extremely hard. Please help!

[Sepsur]

I was in a coma for 57 days, it took me a further 11 days to fully come round. If your poor brother has learning disability- he might be struggling to understand what has happened - I was fully functioning and was so confused, exhausted

[kede in reply to Sepsur]

Thank you for replying. I know that is the hardest thing to deal with. I am so sorry you had to go through something like this. It is truly heart breaking. I hope your better and recovering from all this.

[Sepsur in reply to kede]

it was 7yrs ago - very much mended but still have cognitive issues - memory like a sieve etc etc

[Copse77]

ecmofamilysupport.com/ecmo-...

This is my brothers story. We wrote it to provide hope to other families. I hope it helps you. Remain hopeful is the best advice we were given when others wrote my brother off and said he may be brain damaged with no recovery. It was ECMO that caused brain bleeds but they later resolved. Remember everyone is individual in how they respond and your brother may be able to hear you but not be able to respond yet. You can talk to him as you normally would or play his favourite music or read to him do the things you normally do and it may reassure him. In time I hope things improve for him

And you and your family.

[kede in reply to Copse77]

Thank you for replying. It is hard to deal with any off this. We are trying to remain hopeful. Just got a call from the hospital to call all family tomorrow at 11am.- probably to give us more bad news. Im glad your brother recovered too from everything he went through.

[Copse77]

I hope your brother makes a recovery and that you get better news. It may take time for him to get over this but remember you know him better than anyone else and everyone is an individual and recover at their own rate.

[kede]

Thank you for all your encouraging words. Really appeciate it.

[garycom]

I was in a coma for two months+ Had numerous heart attacks, cardiac arrest, sepsis etc. When I woke up the doctor said he was sorry but he was obligated to tell me my prognosis was not good. That was in 2013. Don't give up hope. Keep talking to your brother. Talk and talk and talk. It will motivate his brain. Tell him you love him, as I'm sure you already have and talk about memories. He won't hear everything but all it takes is a word, even just repeating his name. You don't know what word he'll remember, but don't give up.

[kede]

Thank you Gary for your reply. I appreciate you telling your story and what you went through. Your words are very motivating and gives me hope. I will try and do all these things you have said. Thank you so much and glad you survived and got better.