Unfortunately, after falling from a ladder from about 4 m high whilst painting,
my father of 63 years old has hit a solid object with his head in his fall and is in coma ever since.
he was transferred by trauma helicopter to a hospital immediately.
Doctors gave the worst news i could imagine hearing, which i already feared of hearing:
my dad has the same condition as Jules Bianchi:
Severe Diffuse Axonal Brain Injury.
It's in the 4th week now. Amazingly he actually has regained moments and flashes of conciousness.
However, I fully understand the struggle and hurt sitations like this cause upon the person themselve as do to family and friends. All these news articles in past of Schumacher and Bianchi flash before my eyes and I see it happening the same.
After 3 weeks of being in deep coma without any response, my father opened his right eye for a brief moment. Afterwards it did not occur again untill this week. He now also moves his head, moves his hand and arm and leg. Tries to grab stuff.
They put him in a chair 2 times a day aswell. As positive as that may be, it is still very depressing still.
That is because even if there are small signs of improvement, which to a laymen and family might look like wonders and huge leaps in progress, clinically, the story is very different.
First of all, my father was/is a intelligent man that was fully healthy and fully able, not to mention a proud human being.
His accident resulted in severe brain trauma, in other words, permanent brain damage. That means any road to recovery is long and never fully. He might regain basic motoric and cognitive functions over time, hard work and therapy.
The man can never be the same again, and doctors say he'll never even be the same person again.
In these kinds of brain injury, the axons are damaged. It is explained as if axons are highways or roads leading to several islands where neurons are the ports to these islands. In a Diffuse Axonal Injury, the axons are damaged or even completely teared; thus, the road/highway is destroyed. That means, that cognitive functions and motoric functions stored and accesible in these spots are no longer reachable. Other parts of the brain now must find a way to take over these functions.
The information stored before is now inaccesible. For example preference of music; that 'road' (axon) now is inaccesable. The person thus suddenly lost his memory or preference for a certain artist, song, or even complete type of music.
This goes for daily processes too; a person normally first brushing their teeth taking a shower then going to the toilet and having breakfast might suddenly do this in a completely different order.
Somebody might suddenly stop from singing or whistling during the day or vise versa, suddenly start this.
Though all these things are in a way still positive because the person is alive, there is a significant point to which this situation is very difficult.
Despite all his progress, the neurologic doctor (sorry, english is not my first language) stated when i asked him bluntly and to be fully honest, on a scale of 1-10, whilst 10 being the best number, and a 1 the lowest number, which kind of grade he'd give my father now and a couple of weeks ago, he stated 2 weeks ago he gave him a 1-, and now a 1+, and they're very pessimistic because he is not responding the way he should and he should be in the reach of a solid 6 by now.
Not just that, but whilst me and my sister were at the hospital 2 days ago with my father when he had a brief moment of awareness and awakeness, responding to us by holding hand and pinching, following you with his eyes and head, and nodding whilst asking if he is aware of us - meaning, able to communicate, my father stated while we told him to keep fighting and pushing, by moving his head left to right in disagreement, that he does not want to. We asked him if he doesn't want to continue and he nodded his head in agreement. My sister asked 'but don't you want to live anymore and get better?' and he shaked his head in disagreement. Nurses around at that moment noticed the same.
All of this is very depressing - not even mentioning that at his moment i have lost my job due to restructuring and economic reorginisation where i was working - and makes me understand the severe struggle for the Bianchi family and the Schumacher family.
All i can hope for now is that my father actually improves soon and regain basic motoric and cognitive functions. It's eerily how similar it is to Schumacher and Bianchi.
He fell from 4meters high and he had no damage to any other part of his body, meaning, his head took the full blow.
I share this as a shoutout to relieve some 'pressure' and advise:
work safe, be safe, think of your head and think about your family.
