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On 12/23/94 at 1AM we received a call from our oldest daughter Bonnie that she had just received a call from Todd (a friend of Dougs') that he had been informed by the Glendale Police Dept. that Doug was in St. Josephs' BNI with serious head injuries. He had been in a MVA that occurred at 9:35PM. He had been ejected from the door of his car, run over by the other vehicle, which was a pickup truck, and for a time they were not able to find him. He had ended up underneath the other vehicle. He was air evacuated to Barrows in Phoenix Az.WE met Bonnie and her husband Ken and went to the hospital, arriving there at approximately 2AM. We were taken into a room with a long table and sat across from two doctors and two nurses whose job was to inform us of the worst. We were told he suffered a closed head injury resulting in TBI. He had just come from surgery. They removed his spleen. He had seven broken ribs. The TBI was the thing to worry about. They explained that he had what is called an accelerate to decelerate type of occurrence to the brain. Everything had just come loose. There is massive bleeding in the brain and it was unlikely he would live. There is no surgery or procedure to correct the condition. We all began to break down and it was pretty rough just talking to the doctors and the nurses. We were told the longest he would live would be six months, if that. There would be so many things that he would be susceptible to, such as pneumonia, blood clots and blood poisoning as well as seizures.
WE were then allowed to go in and see him, two at a time. I don't think I have to go in to the bloody details as to how he looked because I am sure many of you have gone through the very same terrible experience. He is paralyzed on his left side, blind in his left eye and is in a coma. As serious as his condition was they didn't put in a trach. There were all kinds of tubes going in everywhere. One in his head I was told was to monitor pressure of the brain. After a few days they put in a feeding Tube. One doctor told us that he was just about the sickest person in the hospital and there was no hope. On 3/1/95 he went to Coronado Nursing Home. The first year was just a constant series of events and some ended in hospitals stays. Each time we were told he wouldn't make it.
In Oct 95 he started to show signs of tracking and making sounds and came out of his coma. After all this time he has stabilized. He gets the colds and flus we all get. Doesn't make conversation, but answers with one to three word sentences and believe me shows all kinds of emotions, from happy to sorrow to anger. His daily routine is to get up at 7AM with a hoyer and spends the day with his mom and dad and goes back to bed at 1:30PM. He goes on his tube feeding from 4PM to 5AM the following day. There is certainly a lot more to relate, but this gives anyone with he knowledge and familiarity of a TBI patient a real good idea of our daily lives.
Thanks for reading my son Doug' story,
Dougs' Mom & Dad Asa & Betty Beckett
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