Eric the great

This one was interesting... with most of the updates, they were just personal messages meant as broad updates – this one was a single reply to a question. With this message, I was stepping outside the personal updates... into a more "family spokesperson" role because I wanted to address the specific questions & at the same time jump on some expectations that I felt were starting to spiral out of control at the time, especially around certain factors like dad's white bloodcell count. On the other hand, some of it was also a very personal reaction... I was feeling very much "out of control" of the situation, so it was really important to me to manage expectations as well as possible, and keep everything as grounded as possible.

The text of the question is quoted at the bottom of the message:

It's difficult to contrast dad's coma to the coma that Karen endured. Karen's coma was induced by trauma; while dad was originally put into a drug-induced coma. Since the conditions of Karen's coma were not controlled, and were more dependent upon the injuries to her head, it was more of a waiting game to see improvement in her condition.

In dad's case, theoretically, his coma was a controlled state. When the drugs that induced the coma (Versed) were removed, we would hope to see a strong improvement. Since the improvement has been a little more slow than expected in Dad's case, there is just some slight concern that there may have been some more damage done to dad's brain while he was under the sedative, and that it might be slowing his recovery. He's probably ok, but it is important to be cautious & concerned about lesions or some other injury to his brain.

I'm certainly not discouraged in any way. On the other hand, I do believe that it's important to manage expectations and to be cautiously optimistic. It's dangerous to focus too much on any one factor, like his white blood cell count, when there are so many delicate and inter-related systems in the body.

If I sound like I'm discouraged, then it's probably only to discourage anyone from being overly optimistic – only to be emotionally crushed later, if things were to crash again. Dad is finally inching along in the right direction (and we couldn't be happier) ...but there is a very long way to go, and a fragile balance to maintain in order to get there.

I'm all for hope, and enthusiasm; and i couldn't be happier about dad's current state... but if dad's condition deteriorates again, I don't want people to think "where did this come from? what happened?" while he still has so far to go.

Dad has been surviving for 3 years now, but it's not just survival that was his goal in undertaking this endeavor. He wants to be able to get down on the floor and play with his grandchildren, or even play golf again. Survival is good, but it's not the only goal... his overall quality of life needs to improve. :)

Many thanks for everything,
-p

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On Saturday, 12 July, 2003, at 23:46PM:

Dear P,

I believe that as long as Eric is alive, there is hope. Mom's message to me sounded like you were kind of discouraged because Eric had not come out of the coma yet. Mom told me it took Karen about a month to come out of her coma. My feeling is that I hope he stays in a coma until it is less painful to come back. With all these sores - why not let him stay in a coma and heal up a lot of lthe sores, and THEN come back. He is still alive. Let God have it the best way. If he is not to come back, which I still think he does have a chance, let it be as pain free as possible.
Love,