“So first off, the bad news. You had some frontal lobe inflammation when you first came into the hospital, which is why we had to keep you under with medicine, to let the swelling go down. To be honest, you healed up from that in near record time, but still took a long time to wake up on your own. Every case is different, when it comes to head injuries, so I will give you the best information I can in general terms. There is a chance you could have issues with some of your short term memory functions for a while, or none at all. This could mean that some things that have happened in the last few days, or even the weeks leading up to your accident, might be harder for you to retrieve than older memories.
“That said, the good news is that you had virtually no rear lobe or spinal injuries to speak of. Your brain functions were pretty normal after your swelling went down so there should be no major damage to your brain. You might have some scarring on that frontal section, but only time will tell how severe the damage is. Do you have any questions of me so far?”
Wow, that was a lot to process. I thought about it for a minute, and then asked, “So, basically, it could have been worse, but my short term memory might be messed up. How long could that take to heal?”
“Well, Matt, it depends on the amount of loss, if any, you have. Have you had any troubles remembering things lately or from before the accident?”
“Doc, I remember everything from after waking up, but have only flashes of images from the accident. I am pretty sure the last thing I had remembered was earlier that day.”
“That’s great to hear, Matt. If you start having any trouble in the next few weeks remembering little things, let me know right away. I will go out now and let the physical therapist get you going.”
He got up and shook my hand, and waved by to my mom as he closed the door behind him.
Well, that was somewhat of a relief. I was a bit worried about my head, but from his information, it sounded like I was the luckiest man alive. I would have to do some of my own research at home about head injuries when I got bored. Lord knows I would have enough time on my hands.
“Well, that sounded positive, don’t you think?” asked mom.
“Yeah, it did. Now we have to see what they say about the rest of me.”
After a few minutes of waiting, and mom filling me in on how loud my dad snored last night, the door opened again. Thank god for small miracles.
A rather tall and striking woman came in and sat at the little desk. She had to be at least 5′ 10″ tall, and about as athletic a body as I had ever seen. She didn’t have an ounce of fat hiding anywhere on her, and her arms and legs looked like she belonged on a track team or something. She had on what looked like a version of workout clothes, or maybe a biker’s outfit.
She introduced herself as Doctor Swinson, and she would be handling my care for the coming weeks.
“Matt let me start off by saying this is not a quick process. While you seem to be in a little better shape than most for being asleep for four months, you still have a lot of work ahead of you. Do you have any questions for me before we get started?”
“I am sure you get this a lot, but how soon do you think I will be able to walk on my own?” I asked.
“Well it all depends on how hard you work at it, and how quickly your muscles respond to the treatment. Hopefully, be up and walking on your own without assistance in a few weeks, but there are no guarantees. I have found that most of the time, the speed of recovery is determined by the will power of the patient. This recovery is as much a mental recovery as it is a physical one, so we need to make sure you give it your all.”
“I guess that sounds good, thanks Doc. Let’s get started?”
“Sure, so first we need to examine your current abilities to see where we need to work on the most, as well as where to start.”
With that she got up, opened the door and asked my mom to wheel me out to the main therapy area. There were all sorts of bars on the wall, ropes hanging, weight lifting machines, and even a table in one corner that looked like a massage table or something.
We got to an area where there were some mats on the floor, and she asked if I could get up on my own. I tried to get up on my own, but needed mom’s help to fully get out of the chair. She asked if I could stand up without help, but I knew that I probably couldn’t. She asked if I could try, and I did try to stand there for a minute before wobbling and having mom reach out to help me stay steady.
She asked me to get down on the mats on the floor, on my back. Mom helped me down onto my back, and the doctor began running all sorts of motion and feedback tests, at least that’s what she called them. Basically, she had me push against her hands with my legs and arms, neck, and so forth.
This took almost an hour, but by the time we were done, I was exhausted. She asked mom to help her lift me up into the chair, and together they got me sitting back up. She asked mom to wheel me back into the exam room and wait while she wrote up some quick notes.
She came into the room a few minutes later with a big smile on her face.
“I have some good news for you, Mr. Jordan. You are actually doing quite well and should recovery nicely after some intense therapy. It will require a lot of effort on your part, but I couldn’t find any evidence of nerve damage or possible motor control problems.
“Your main problem is atrophy. Your muscles were sitting still for long enough that they need exercise to get back to what they used to be. Thankfully, your coma, while it seems long, was relatively short. If you had been out for a lot longer, you would likely need years of therapy just to walk again.”
She paused for a minute to let the news sink in, and then went on. “You will need rigorous therapy at least three days a week, with continued exercises at home as well. Here are some basics you can get started on today when you get home, and we will train you in the coming days on some more advanced stuff you can do at home.” She handed me a packet of papers stapled together, and asked “Any questions?”
“No I don’t think so, but if I do, I will call your office, ok?”
“Sure, that sounds good. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to working with you on your recovery.”