Today is April 16, and we are on day 14 since Ben's longboarding accident. I'm home for the morning. I just signed a pile of copies of NIGHTINGALE to send out, and I have to pay my taxes and take care of some insurance matters.
Ben's left leg seems to want to get out of bed a lot today. He keeps swinging it over the railing. I think that with his broken pelvis and vertebrae, he may be trying to take pressure off of his lower back. Or maybe it just has a mind of its own.
Ben is opening his eyes a bit more, and he seems to respond a bit. For example, when the nurse asked him to hold his breath for a moment while they drained his lungs, he stopped breathing; and when we asked him to put his left leg back on the bed, he moved it around a bit, though it was rather feeble.
Yet I have to be honest. We don't always get him to do what we ask, only occasionally. He is in and out of consciousness, but more "out" than "in." When he does obey a command, it is with great difficulty.
His head is still swollen pretty big, but going down every day. Since his skull cap has been taken off, his head is pretty misshapen, but it will go back to normal once he gets it put back on.
The doctors put him on medication yesterday to control seizures, and say that he will probably be on it for a long time.
I'm going to check with the doctors to see about putting additives into his feeding tube--vitamin D, krill oil, black cherry juice, and fresh berries, etc. I want to boost the things that will bring down inflammation in the brain, particularly by using pyrocyanthins from fresh blackberries, cherries, and so on.
As Ben slowly comes out of his coma, I want people to recognize Ben as he can become, not just as he is, so I put today's picture side-by-side with one from a couple of months ago.
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