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Old 05-08-18 | 05:32 AM
  #201  
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Originally Posted by CliffordK
Machka,

I'm glad things are progressing, albeit seemingly slowly.

Do you want to give us a brief description of what happened?

Have you sold all the ladders around the house yet?
Somehow I thought I had.

He was in the cherry picker at work, fixing the net over the orchard.
Something happened and it toppled, taking him with it.
He was found some distance away and it looked like he got out of the bucket, stood up, felt ill and decided to lie down for a moment.

That's all we know.

He doesn't remember any of that ... or actually anything in the month prior to that at this point.
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Old 05-08-18 | 07:21 AM
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Originally Posted by Machka
Thanks again to everyone. Your support is really encouraging!


OK, first of all, Rowan is still in Post Traumatic Amnesia ... and he still has a way to go, especially with short-term memories and building up his strength again ... but ...

I had a chat with his Occupational Therapist who told me that in the last 2-3 days, Rowan has taken a leap forward.


Rowan ...
  • has started walking. He is walking with support, he's walking a short distance, and he gets tired easily ... but he is up and walking!
  • is eating and drinking normal meals, and he's hungry.
  • has dexterity in his hands. I mentioned earlier that he can use a spoon etc. Today we found out he can use a pencil too. Again, they mentioned he'd have to relearn that, but nope ... he's writing.
  • is able to read. He's probably not reading or writing War & Peace just yet, but it's a start.
  • is regaining long-term memories in random chunks here and there.
  • does recognise me now! And recognises/remembers a bunch of other people as well.


He has been handed over from the Neuro Ward Therapist teams to the Rehab Unit Therapist teams, but is still in the Neuro Ward until a spot opens up in Rehab. The minute that happens, he'll go there.


Today, I asked him if he remembered Bikeforums, and he did! I told him about about all your thoughts and prayers ... he was touched and thought that was so kind of you all. He thanks you all.
Again...more tears (of joy).
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Old 05-08-18 | 08:21 AM
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Oh wow. That is awesome!
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Old 05-08-18 | 10:36 AM
  #204  
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Wonderful report - thank you Machka!

Continuing to hold both of you in my prayers.
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Old 05-08-18 | 10:53 AM
  #205  
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Wonderful progress! I'm so happy to read about how well Rowan is doing. I know there is much farther to go, but look how far he has come.
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Old 05-08-18 | 10:57 AM
  #206  
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Originally Posted by Machka

He doesn't remember any of that ... or actually anything in the month prior to that at this point.
My mom was a clinical psychologist for the state. She frequently had to deal with people who were claiming head injuries and were suing the state for damages/negligence... if they remembered the incident, she knew they were lying.
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Old 05-08-18 | 01:00 PM
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Both you and Rowan seem to be doing well. For the both of you, it is still a long climb but you have found the long climb pace. Very well done.
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Old 05-08-18 | 01:30 PM
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Good news, seems he has indeed taken a "leap forward". Wow!
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Old 05-08-18 | 01:51 PM
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Tell Rowan that Bailey the corgi sends his love.
His driver also says hello.
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Old 05-08-18 | 02:35 PM
  #210  
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Amazing how fast he's recovering, great news!
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Old 05-08-18 | 07:34 PM
  #211  
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Keep it up, you two.
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Old 05-09-18 | 05:51 AM
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Terrific progress!! Wonderful news.
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Old 05-09-18 | 09:45 AM
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Originally Posted by Machka
Thanks again to everyone. Your support is really encouraging!


OK, first of all, Rowan is still in Post Traumatic Amnesia ... and he still has a way to go, especially with short-term memories and building up his strength again ... but ...

I had a chat with his Occupational Therapist who told me that in the last 2-3 days, Rowan has taken a leap forward.


Rowan ...
  • has started walking. He is walking with support, he's walking a short distance, and he gets tired easily ... but he is up and walking!
  • is eating and drinking normal meals, and he's hungry.
  • has dexterity in his hands. I mentioned earlier that he can use a spoon etc. Today we found out he can use a pencil too. Again, they mentioned he'd have to relearn that, but nope ... he's writing.
  • is able to read. He's probably not reading or writing War & Peace just yet, but it's a start.
  • is regaining long-term memories in random chunks here and there.
  • does recognise me now! And recognises/remembers a bunch of other people as well.


He has been handed over from the Neuro Ward Therapist teams to the Rehab Unit Therapist teams, but is still in the Neuro Ward until a spot opens up in Rehab. The minute that happens, he'll go there.


Today, I asked him if he remembered Bikeforums, and he did! I told him about about all your thoughts and prayers ... he was touched and thought that was so kind of you all. He thanks you all.
This is WONDERFUL news!! So happy to hear it!

SP
OC, OR
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Old 05-09-18 | 10:28 AM
  #214  
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Whooeee! Happy day now.
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Old 05-09-18 | 08:16 PM
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Originally Posted by CliffordK
21 concussions?

Professional sports?

It sounds like it is time to make some changes. There is a growing body of research about the damage caused by repeated head trauma in Soccer, American football, and boxing.
I was just always the opposite of a cat. Never landed on my feet.
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Old 05-09-18 | 11:49 PM
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Wow, amazing progress!

Thank you, Machka, for these updates.
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Old 05-10-18 | 04:33 AM
  #217  
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Rowan Update

Rowan has commenced Post Traumatic Amnesia testing. They use the Westmead test here, which you can google if you're interested.

When he successfully completes the testing, he will be declared out of Post Traumatic Amnesia and into the next phase of his recovery.

When will that occur? Well, as usual, that depends on him. Could be days ... or a week, or two, or ...

But sooner would be better than later.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I may have said this (my own memory is a bit dodgy just now!) ...

There are a large number of articles on Post Traumatic Amnesia, and I’ve looked through a bunch, but these two are probably the best in the sense that they are concise and straightforward. Many of the others go into long, technical descriptions of testing and all sorts of things which might be worth reading as well. But for something relatively brief, these are the best I’ve found.

This is from the Queensland Government, a Brisbane hospital.
https://metronorth.health.qld.gov.au...c-amnersia.pdf

This is another one from Victoria Government, a Melbourne hospital.
https://www.thermh.org.au/sites/defa...V4.0_10.17.pdf

If you are interested in what Rowan (and I) are going through, check out those articles and check out Google for Post Traumatic Amnesia and Severe Brain Injury.
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Old 05-10-18 | 06:46 AM
  #218  
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Originally Posted by Machka
Rowan has commenced Post Traumatic Amnesia testing. They use the Westmead test here, which you can google if you're interested.

When he successfully completes the testing, he will be declared out of Post Traumatic Amnesia and into the next phase of his recovery.

When will that occur? Well, as usual, that depends on him. Could be days ... or a week, or two, or ...

But sooner would be better than later.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I may have said this (my own memory is a bit dodgy just now!) ...

There are a large number of articles on Post Traumatic Amnesia, and I’ve looked through a bunch, but these two are probably the best in the sense that they are concise and straightforward. Many of the others go into long, technical descriptions of testing and all sorts of things which might be worth reading as well. But for something relatively brief, these are the best I’ve found.

This is from the Queensland Government, a Brisbane hospital.
https://metronorth.health.qld.gov.au...c-amnersia.pdf

This is another one from Victoria Government, a Melbourne hospital.
https://www.thermh.org.au/sites/defa...V4.0_10.17.pdf

If you are interested in what Rowan (and I) are going through, check out those articles and check out Google for Post Traumatic Amnesia and Severe Brain Injury.

Good to hear of his progress.
We learned a bit about post traumatic amnesia a few years ago when my step daughter fell off her roof while putting up Christmas lights.
Her injuries included concussion, bleeding of the brain, broken ribs, a broken hip, and a broken hand.
While she was quite lucid very shortly after the accident, she had no memory of what happened, and an extensive loss of short term memory.
She had no idea why she would be in a hospital bed, and couldn't understand why she had so much pain when she would get out of bed to go to the bathroom. You could tell her she had a broken hip, and she would say, really? how did that happen? Five minutes later, you would have to tell her all over again.
Some longer term memories were affected for a while too. She is a world traveler, and goes somewhere new and exciting every year, but for several weeks, she could not recall her last trip.
The good news is, all her faculties returned, and her physical injuries completely healed, although to this day, she does not remember the fall.
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Old 05-10-18 | 05:34 PM
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Very good news, Machka & Rowan. That elephant is getting smaller by the day!
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Old 05-11-18 | 05:13 AM
  #220  
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Originally Posted by Dan Burkhart
Good to hear of his progress.
We learned a bit about post traumatic amnesia a few years ago when my step daughter fell off her roof while putting up Christmas lights.
Her injuries included concussion, bleeding of the brain, broken ribs, a broken hip, and a broken hand.
While she was quite lucid very shortly after the accident, she had no memory of what happened, and an extensive loss of short term memory.
She had no idea why she would be in a hospital bed, and couldn't understand why she had so much pain when she would get out of bed to go to the bathroom. You could tell her she had a broken hip, and she would say, really? how did that happen? Five minutes later, you would have to tell her all over again.
Some longer term memories were affected for a while too. She is a world traveler, and goes somewhere new and exciting every year, but for several weeks, she could not recall her last trip.
The good news is, all her faculties returned, and her physical injuries completely healed, although to this day, she does not remember the fall.
That is good news!
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Old 05-11-18 | 06:48 AM
  #221  
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Originally Posted by Machka
Rowan has commenced Post Traumatic Amnesia testing. They use the Westmead test here, which you can google if you're interested.

When he successfully completes the testing, he will be declared out of Post Traumatic Amnesia and into the next phase of his recovery.

When will that occur? Well, as usual, that depends on him. Could be days ... or a week, or two, or ...

But sooner would be better than later.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I may have said this (my own memory is a bit dodgy just now!) ...

There are a large number of articles on Post Traumatic Amnesia, and I’ve looked through a bunch, but these two are probably the best in the sense that they are concise and straightforward. Many of the others go into long, technical descriptions of testing and all sorts of things which might be worth reading as well. But for something relatively brief, these are the best I’ve found.

This is from the Queensland Government, a Brisbane hospital.
https://metronorth.health.qld.gov.au...c-amnersia.pdf

This is another one from Victoria Government, a Melbourne hospital.
https://www.thermh.org.au/sites/defa...V4.0_10.17.pdf

If you are interested in what Rowan (and I) are going through, check out those articles and check out Google for Post Traumatic Amnesia and Severe Brain Injury.
At the moment, Rowan is missing most of the last 8-ish months. It's kind of hard to tell exactly where his memory stops because on the odd occasion, he'll recall something more recent.

Prior to 8-ish months, he remembers pieces.


Now yesterday and today were an adventure.

"They" predicted 40-80 mm of rain from a low pressure system that was supposed to pass over the area. On Thursday (yesterday), it rained all day and by the time I went home, there had been about 25 mm of rain which is quite a decent rainfall for this area. The average rainfall for the month of May here is 45 mm ... so 25 mm between 9 am and 7 pm is a decent chunk of that.

Shortly after I got home, it really started to rain in earnest ... like being in the midst of Niagara Falls! 48 mm dropped in 1 hour!! That's a month's worth of rain here in 1 hour.

By the time 24 hours was up 129.2 mm (5 inches) of rain had fallen.

While all that rain was falling, we also had a massive thunderstorm that lasted about 2 hours. Tasmania rarely gets thunderstorms, so to have one that just went on and on was incredible. And it lodged itself right over the house for about half an hour. At one point, I was walking down the hallway when it appeared that the entire front room lit up (and I had all the curtains pulled), and before I could even process that, the thunder cracked and set the whole house shaking ... me included!

The wind and ocean were roaring as well. No sleep till about 2:30 am when things finally died off to a somewhat more normal pouring rain and howling wind.

And meanwhile, I was watching videos being posted on Facebook of streets in the middle of Hobart becoming roaring rivers and taking cars away ... and the university I attend being inundated.

The thing that concerned me was that the streets which were becoming roaring rivers were right around the hospital where Rowan is. I kept checking every couple hours through the night to see whether or not the hospital was being evacuated.


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Today, travel to the city was not advised, and my employer contacted me and told me to stay home. But the hospital called me twice (two different specialists) and asked that I come in because it was all business as usual there, and all of a sudden that had all kinds of questions for me.

I mentioned that I wasn't in yet because of the weather event and got "well, we came in!" <<sigh>>

Anyway, I managed to get into the hospital, and one of the things Rowan and I did was to go for a walk ... 100 metres or maybe a bit more on the floor where Rowan is!! He did really well.

Last edited by Machka; 05-11-18 at 06:51 AM.
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Old 05-11-18 | 08:46 AM
  #222  
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Thank you for the updates. It's heartening to hear of Rowan's progress.
I admire your strength.
All the best to both of you,
Tom
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Old 05-11-18 | 12:14 PM
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Saw the Tasmanian Heavy Weather on NHK,JP, and that some hospitals were evacuated ..
looks like its let up now, according to https://www.bbc.com/weather/0/2163355, for Hobart.

thoughts & best wishes continue..
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Old 05-11-18 | 12:29 PM
  #224  
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Hundred meter walk sounds as significant as a hundred mile bike ride at this point in your lives. Keep on walkin'!
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Old 05-11-18 | 03:01 PM
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Great to hear about the walk! Glad the road did not collapse into a sinkhole beneath you on your way to or from it!
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