Thoughts of a stranger.

Am I myself?

TWO MONTHS LATER

Recovery has been a bittersweet process; there have been great moments, for example Derek has been able to walk more than seven steps, his slurring is less worse now and he has been able to talk a little bit faster than before. The bad part to it is the seizures, the mood changes, which are way worse than before, he also constantly gets terrible headaches and he gets so cranky from it. He has gotten just a few panic attacks, we're lucky that his movility is still reduced, which prevents him of going outside and doing stupid stuff. We've been almost for three months at the hospital, Doctor Shane says that we might be able to go home in a week or so, they want to wait mostly because of the seizures, luckily his heart hasn't stopped ever since that one time, but they need to be sure that his brain is completely stable so that he doesn't get another one. Either way, he's still on anticonvulsant meds and probably will be for the rest of his life. Anyway, we all are very positive on his recovery, the neuro team told us that patients who have a lucid period before going into coma have the best prognosis, and Derek is one of those patients, which obviously is great.

He has been getting tremors in his left hand, and it has been reducing his motion range progressively, so now he has to deal with physical therapy too, because doctors fear that he might lose complete motion in his left hand. They say that this is happening because of the loss of blood during the surgery, because there was no evident trauma in his extremities. He also was diagnosed with hypoxemia; due to the damage in his brain, there's not enough oxygen in his blood since the metabolic demand is too high and unfortunately it cannot be supplied. Therefore, the hypoxemia is making him feel more tired than he should, he runs out of breath very easily and quickly, even when he's just talking he needs to do pauses to catch his breath. It's a possibility that he might need to use oxygen tanks forever.

The psychiatrist has also been talking to him lately, the only issue is that due to his speech problem he really doesn't talk too much, so it has been a little bit difficult for the psychiatrist to understand his situation properly. Meanwhile, he prescribed Derek some meds, that are not mood stabilizers, to help him deal with the anxiety. The issue is that he's used to heavy opioids, so these new meds have not been helping him too much. But Derek says that talking about it makes him feel better.

Right now he's in physical therapy, they are also helping him to gain more muscle mass as his sedentarism in the last months made his body insanely weak. So, they make him walk, lift some weight (clearly not too heavy), take the stairs and stretches, plus his hand workout which consists of hand movements and stretches, they also do some coordination and sensibility exercises. Our lives are basically made up of therapies, hospitals and on giving emotional support. I was supposed to start a new semester in my university last week but I had to postpone it because I need to take care of Derek. Mom has been feeling better, she hasn't fallen into an episode ever since the accident, which is surprising that a trauma this big hasn't triggered her PTSD yet.

-I can't anymore.- Derek slurred, his slurring worsens when he gets tired to the point when it is barely understandable.

He was trying to take the stairs, taking little pauses in between each step, but an epidural hematoma plus an aortic tear is not a good combination for when we are looking at physical resistance.

-You're just missing a few steps, you can't stay here in the middle of the stairs.- A nurse said.

-Can't breathe.- He gasped.

-Okay, let's stop for a minute. Inhale deeply, |hold it for a couple of seconds and exhale slowly, you know how to do it.

Derek started to do as the nurse told him to, he could calm himself down but then he suddenly started to cry.