Just finded out this great forum a couple of days ago..
My father who is 69 years old, got an big Subarachnoid hemorrhage bleeding on the 13th of January 2012.
It started out when he just felt apart when he was in a local store to shop, he got rushed to the hospital real quick, when i arrived he was still consciousness but his face was hanging a little bit on the left side and he couldn't move his left arm much and had some problem to talk clearly.
The doctors did a MRI scan on him but didn't see any big bleeding or big stroke, and they was thinking that he had a minor stroke/bleeding.
Around 1 hour later he started to throw up and then lost consciousness.
We couldn't get any contact with him and neither the doctor, he was once again send to do a new MRI scan, where they did see a large Subarachnoid hemorrhage bleeding now.
The Doctors then told us that if they don't do anything he probadly wont survive the night, they needed to drain the bleeding out.
Problem was that our hospital didn't do this kind of surgery so if the other hospital did think that they could do something he needed to fly helicopter around 1.5 hour to the other hospital,
Here the doctor also told us that is was big chance that he didn't make the trip to the other hospital also.
He did make the trip to the hospital and the surgery did go well, he was then put in a respirator where they keeped him sedated for around one and a half week with a draining tube in the back of his head to drain out blood after the operation and they also wanted the swelling in the brain after the surgery to calm down.
Somewhere around two weeks later they started to cut down the sleeping drug in him he did some small response with his eyes when we talked to him but no open eyes yet.
He then got transferred back to our hospital around one week later he still haven't fully awake yet.
Around one week later he started to slowly wake up again under some period and just looked at us with his eyes.
But mostly he just sleeped all day long even here.
Today he is on quite good nursing home he can move his right arm a little bit and his hand but no movement in his left arm or hand. He´s neck has been much stronger then it was before he can hold his head up when he sits in his wheel chair, and when they told him to do it when they comb his hair for example.
He is breeding on his own but still has a tracheostomy tube in his throat to help him if he needed some help with breeding sometimes, the doctors told us quite long ago when he still was in the hospital, that they suspected that his tongue was paralyzed, so he needed the track?! in his throat to not swallow the tongue or something like that.
But some other doctors told me that his muscles was still to weak to hold his tongue where it should be and if they removed the tracheostomy tube they think that it would fall back and could possibly choke him out.
It feels like when he was in hospital for 6-8 months the recovery progress slowed down a bit, maybe because he didn't have anyone around him like he has on the new nursing home he is on right now where they train his 2 times a day, they didn't wanted to send him to special rehab center only because he was not that good.
I think he also is a good fighter "seven" heart attacks has he recover good from...
When i now ask him things or the other family members ask him something he blinks with his eyes so i think he understand what im saying, he follow us with his eyes when i walking around in his room.
IF i ask him something and tell him to press my hand he does it, I asked the doctors if someone who has a tracheostomy tube in his throat wanted to say something could they do it when the tracheestomy tube is still there, NO was the answer!?, Sometimes it feels that he tries to say something if you watch his facial appearance close and weird sounds comes sometimes from him.
Does anyone think that we should ask them to remove the tracheostomy tube one more time soon or maybe later, to see if he can handle it better now? it was around 5-6 months ago when they tried to remove it for the first time with not 100% result.
I still have questions in my head if someone with a paralyzed tongue could stick it out to taste some coffee when my mom asks him if he wanted to taste some when she drinks it.
So sometimes i think that the doctors maybe dosn´t has right on everything they say about stroke and stroke recovery's.
I still support him 100% to get better even after long time like this, and i don't trust the thing they always says, 3-6 month nothing gets better after that.
Its real hard to support him 100% and help my mom with everything around the house and cars and everything like that and also have a family with a newly born child to take care of..
But i got some more strength after i have discovered this forum so i will never give him up.
Sorry for long text
Miracles can hopefully happens in recovery long time after a stroke that's my hope..
Thanks
