a thread about comas

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i have a friend who was in and out of comas for about 6 months after a car accident. it was really scary - when he was conscious he wouldn't talk and didn't seem to recognize anyone - and all the doctors would do is spend 25 minutes explaining they didn't know what was going on.

he started recovering a few months back & last i saw him he was speaking (although having a very hard time), he remembered me but was still immobile. i hadn't been to visit for about 2 months, heard he'd been recovering well - and then there he was; at the bar, last night¡

he didn't recall me visiting him at all and was still talking really funny. but otherwise seemed a helluvalot better.

i was reluctant to get too excited about any recovery but it seems he may be alright (not sure if there permanent brain damage or not). i realize comas are very unpredictable things but i'd still like some input on what i can expect - should his speech improve¿ could he have another relapse¿ maybe stories of similar situations if anyone has any.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 27 May 2004 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

anyone who makes an "i thought this was the comma thread" joke will be risking their lives.

― dyson (dyson), Thursday, 27 May 2004 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a friend in college that a sort of similar thing happen to him (bad car accident, quite extensive damage). Last I saw him he was functioning quite well, speech was normal, and he'd just started grad school. There's no way to predict these things, but hopefully your friend will recover.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

My brother was in a coma for a little over a month before he died. He never came out of it but he would move around a lot when my mom talked to him.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

my father was in a coma for several months after lung problems led to a stroke. he did recover at some point, very briefly, for about four months; left the hospital, went home, but had a series of other strokes which put him back into a coma before he died. but he was very unhealthy for his age (52). I agree that they are very scary and mysterious things.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

mr teeny's grandfather enlisted right before WWII but had an accident and went into a coma, missed the whole damn war. He's alive and healthy now though!

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Neither people I knew who were in a coma recovered from it, but in fairness one was brought on my a suicidal drug overdose and he was not brought to the hospital for many hours after the occurance (he has extensive brain damage resulting in a problem similar to the one in Memento which eventually deteroriated into more serious speech and thought issues, he lives in a state home now), and the other was a man who was extremely ill, had muscular sclerosis his entire life and suffered several massive brain infections from ill health practices over the past couple years, eventually a lung infection spread back to his brain (he died the other day).

Neither ever showed "positive recovery signs", though.

― Allyzay, Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Punctuation is always necessary.

― Spinktor (El Spinktor), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think you can have a coma without some brain damage. Sometimes a brain can 'rewire' around the damage. Oftentimes not. It's all pretty damned mysterious, but then healing in general is an awesome and mysterious force. I wish your friend a full recovery, but just the progress he's made so far is amazing to me.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess a lot depends on what caused the coma... If he's up and about and doing things, though, that's got to be a great sign.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

My friend whom I described upthread got to the point where he said his only remaining symptoms were that he'd sometimes blank on somebody's name when he was talking to them. Lucky, I guess.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i have a friend who was in and out of comas for about 6 months after a car accident. it was really scary - when he was conscious he wouldn't talk and didn't seem to recognize anyone

That's not "going in and out of comas," that's "staying in a coma for 6 months." The lying-still-in-bed phase that most people think of when they hear the word "coma" is only one type--this part

when he was conscious he wouldn't talk and didn't seem to recognize anyone

is another type, known as the vegitative state (I think). There's all kinds of degrees and states of consciousness--I'll see if I can find a copy of the *foo* Coma Index online for you.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Thursday, 27 May 2004 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

My grandmother was in a coma for almost two years after an aneurysm, she never came out and died just after midnight on the day after Christmas (I suspect she died just before midnight on Christmas but the hospice delayed notification to make it easier on the family).

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 27 May 2004 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

My dad was in a coma for about three weeks before he died, as a result of a heart attack and probably a simultanous stroke. It's really hard to say what was up inside his head, if anything, during that time--the doctors said there was pretty much zero brain activity the entire time he was there. Eventually they just removed him from life support because in all fairness, he was probably completely gone three weeks earlier.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 27 May 2004 22:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Found it! I was thinking of the
Glasgow Coma Scale. (It's on the net in several places, but this is the one with the least amount of medical jargon.)

Oh, and I'd like to express my sympathies to dyson, kyle, and everyone else on the list who have had friends or relatives who have suffered from this.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Thursday, 27 May 2004 23:03 (twenty-two years ago)

thanks.

― dyson (dyson), Friday, 28 May 2004 03:49 (twenty-two years ago)

"healing in general is an awesome and mysterious force."

this is very, very true and i've never heard it expressed quite this way.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 28 May 2004 03:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a friend who came out of a coma, The Doctors gave her no chance, but her family stayed with her 24/7 and massaged her and sang and spoke to her.
She is a miracle - but she is also very strange. During her recovery (after the hospitalization), she fell in love with a svengali/guru guy and they are both a bit creepy. She has some disabilities - including speech, so she speaks very slowly and loudly.
She is very loving and great - but she tends to yell about her love life a lot. "THIS...MAN...MAKES...ME...COME...ALL...THE...TIME!

― aimurchie, Friday, 28 May 2004 14:55 (twenty-two years ago)

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