Dead on Arrival - Resurrected by Grace

My Story: Part 4

 January 23, 2013, 6:00 am There were still no changes to my mom's condition but they felt she was more stable than the day before. She had had two more seizures late in the evening but it had been several hours since the last one. Between Matt and the amazing nurses, they talked me into going home to sleep off my migraine and I reluctantly agreed. After all, there was nothing I could do and no point in persisting in pain; Matt would call as soon as anything changed. For the next four hours, I ceased to exist. The next thing I remember is my phone ringing. It was Matt.

10:30 am I don't remember getting up, getting dressed, or driving back to the hospital. I have no recollection of entering the front doors, riding the elevator to the third floor, or walking into the CCU. I do, however, remember seeing my mom, alive and awake. She had come to, completely on her own, and was responsive. She was still hooked up to the ventilator so she couldn't speak but that didn't stop her from asking questions: Where am I? What is this? Why am I cold? She posed all of these questions using sign language which is very convenient when you have a tube down your throat.

Let me make something clear: I have great respect for the staff that was set to watch over my mother while administering her treatment. They were gifted, kind, and brilliant. However, they had no idea what to do once she woke up. The problem was obvious: they never expected to have to move onto "step 2" so to speak. Because, and we didn't realize this until later, most of them had never seen this therapy work before. And NONE of them had witnessed it work to the degree of success they saw with my mom. She was awake. She was coherent. She was asking questions and using the language center of her brain. There was an energized buzz throughout the CCU and it infected everyone who came into the room. Finally, my brother Kelby arrived. Ever the class clown, he walked in and said, "If you wanted me to visit so bad you could have just asked me!" Ha. Ha. Ha.

My mom made some things clear over the next hour while they tried to track down Dr. A to ask him what to do next: 1) She was cold. 2) She wanted that tube out of her mouth. But the nurses were too nervous to touch or do anything without talking to Dr. A first. Something amazing and rare had happened and they didn't know why – nobody wanted to breathe for fear they might set off an avalanche. While we waited, we began to notice that while doing great, Mom was not perfect. She kept forgetting things. She asked the same questions again and again. But short term amnesia is completely normal with this kind of situation (apparently). After a while, we lost all decency and began having a little fun at her expense. "Mom, you've had an accident. It's been ten years" "Mom, it's been ten years and Kat and I have three kids!" "Mom, its 2100 and you are a robot now." This might seem absurdly inappropriate to you but if you knew my brothers you'd understand. Honestly, there was no harm done because she would forget about two minutes later. When Dr. A finally got there he was...proud. I mean it; he was beaming with almost fatherly pride. I can see now why; his method had worked. His approach to TH had proved so successful that the patient woke up fully intact and aware. I remember him saying, "Well, of course, she's cold! Let's warm her up! And get that tube out of her!" He was joyful and his confidence was infectious. We breathed a little easier after witnessing his reaction and began to hope that all might be ok. Almost exactly 24 hours after collapsing at work, my mother was alive and awake.

The course of events that followed was long, exhausting, and challenging. Mom stayed in the hospital for a full week and quickly became frustrated with her situation. Her memory improved but the barrage of tests that followed was tedious, to say the least. They conducted a brain scan and found only two small, slightly dark spots that indicated the only visible brain damage which might account for her memory loss. She couldn't remember anything that happened the morning of her collapse – the last thing she could remember was the previous night. Her medical team decided that since they couldn't pinpoint the exact problem that caused the collapse, they would try and treat the most likely possibilities: her heart and her head. A pacemaker/defibrillator was to be implanted and blood thinners prescribed. They would also begin trying different seizure medications to help prevent any in the future. She wouldn't be allowed to drive for 6-8 weeks which was a point of major contention between my mother and her doctors. It seemed inconceivable to her that they would expect her to take off for that amount of time from work. She is, if nothing else, stubborn as a mule and twice as tough. At the time, I don't think she had any idea just how serious her situation had been. For all she knew, she just woke up and was in the hospital. She had no idea that anything had gone wrong and couldn't remember collapsing. And now somebody was trying to rearrange her life for her, taking away her work and her ability to drive. How frustrating it must have been. I let them battle it out knowing full well she would do what she wanted in the end.