My Dad Wakes Up Five Days After Brain Surgery And Said

No joke the first thing he said after being under for five days. 

"they drilled a hole in one side of my head, then they drilled a hole in the other side of my head... Then they flushed out the bad stuff.  I hope they put in some good stuff too.". 

He had two sub dermal hematomas one on each side of his head. The result of a fall about six weeks ago. Thaught it was just a concussion but things progressively got worse. The original hospital was useless and kept sending him home after we took him back in multiple times explaining he was feeling sick and was having headaches was progressively getting more tired and getting worse. Last Saturday he passes out and taken back again. They diagnose wrong again and at that point we kids huddle and demand he be transferred to one of the big hospitals in Boston. With in two hours they have figured it out based on history and in three hours it is confirmed via testing. Emergency surgery occurred with in 12 hours. 

He is not out of the woods vet but the prognosis is excellent for a full recovery. On a side note they told us that had this same thing happened to a young person they would have died but as you age your brain shrinks and the extra room in his skull saved him.  

And this brings me to another point. If I have been a bit off over the last six weeks or so I apologize. I have been under a bit of stress and have been a bit short with people.  

Umm... CAT scan?  DUH.  I used to do those in the ICU, unless they were really big.

Glad he is OK. 

29 years ago this week, my father had to fly out to Los Angeles from Connecticut to have a meningioma removed. After the surgery, he couldn't walk and could only speak at a whisper, as the vibration from his own voice hurt his brain. On the flight home a few weeks later, he leaned over and whispered to me, "When I get home, I'm going to pretend that I'm really slow now, just so I can hear what people say about me."

He took me out to lunch this afternoon.

Best wishes to you and your Dad Dean, from me and my Dad.

In reply to Woody :

Nice.

In reply to dean1484 :

Sounds like your dad is a tough old bird.  He has my best wishes for a complete recovery.  

Being able to crack a joke first thing after waking up is a good sign.

Crackin' jokes after brain surgery definitely sounds like a good sign. Hope his recovery continues to go well 

My brother had some brain injuries after a car wreck. We almost lost him and he was in a coma for several weeks. When he woke up, everything was very slow. It took him a few minutes to answer a question with pauses between each word. Dad and I were in the room that day and dad was flipping through the channels to find something Chris might like. Rolled across Nickelodeon and Angry Beavers was on. 

Dad: “wanna watch angry beavers?”

Chris: “anytime...............is a..................good time...........for..........beaver”

We knew he was going to be ok after that. 

Dr. Hess said:

Umm... CAT scan?  DUH.  I used to do those in the ICU, unless they were really big.

Glad he is OK. 

And they still have not found the cats.   But they keep scanning for them. 

Good to hear you guys found the right docs. Here's to a complete recovery.  Sounds like the kind of Dad you want to keep around. 

Reminds me of the story Adam Carolla told in one of his books (at least I think it was Adam Carolla) where a friend of his had been in essentially a vegetative state for years. One day, as his wife was headed out the door she asked if he wanted her to pick him up anything, just out of habit. A couple synapses fired and his friend responded "a ten-thousand dollar blowjob"