.JPG "Tim on 5/3/2009")
Tim canyoneering at Christoper Creek on 5/3/2009
.jpg "Tim on 2/17/2008")
Tim had been having a bad headache for more than a week before Christmas 2007. The morning of Christmas Eve, it was so bad that Tim called Kathy to take him to the ER. A CAT scan revealed blood in the back of his brain, and the ER doctor sent Tim by ambulance to the ICU at the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.
A BNI doctor recommended a drain to determine how much pressure the blood was causing in Tim's brain and to relieve the pressure. A drain would also allow the doctors to act quickly if things turned for the worse. On Christmas Eve, the doctors drilled a hole in Tim's skull and inserted a drain (EVD) into Tim's brain.
The doctors tried reducing the drainage gradually, but that made Tim's condition worsen. Therefore, on New Year's Eve, a neurosurgeon made another hole in Tim's skull and inserted a permanent shunt for draining and relieving pressure on his brain.
The next day, Tim seemed to do well, considering that he had major surgery the previous day. However, that night was the beginning of a bad trend. Tim started trying to clear his throat during the night, and that got worse and worse. In addition, starting the following morning, he became harder and harder to wake.
During one of her checks the following night, the ICU nurse couldn't wake Tim. The doctors and nurses inserted a breathing tube, cleaned an incredible amount of build-up out of his lungs, and got Tim responsive again. He would respond to nurse's commands, like squeezing fingers, but he could not stay awake.
For days, the doctors worked at getting Tim awake enough to breathe on his own. During his first week at the hospital, his neurosurgeon had reassured Tim that the doctors didn't foresee having to cut into his brain and said that they would only do that as a lifesaving measure. That became the only choice on January 7th, when the neurosurgeon did brain surgery to remove the blood clot, which was pressing on Tim's brain stem. Tim got yet a third new hole in his skull.
The doctors never found the source of the bleed. They were never able to determine the cause of the bleed either, because Tim didn't smoke, didn't have high blood pressure, didn't hit his head, etc.
All this had taken a huge toll on Tim's body and brain, but he finally started getting better after the clot removal. Because the clot was in the cerebellum, the doctors told us that Tim would have issues with nausea and dizziness for quite some time but didn't know how long. Tim moved to the St. Joe's Neuro Rehab unit for inpatient therapy on January 18 and was released from the hospital on February 7.
Tim stayed at Kathy's house during his recovery, and Steve provided help at home and transportation for Tim. Tim started outpatient therapy at the St. Joe's Center for Transitional Neurorehabilitation (CTN) on February 13, 2008. The goal of the CTN program was to identify and work on everything Tim needed to recover and go back to his job. We are so thankful that he was able to get into this great program, for which traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients come from all over the country.
We didn't know how long the outpatient rehab would be but, at the end of June, Tim was already back to 32 hours a week at his job as an electrical engineer with only 8 hours a week at CTN. He was living alone in his own home, and he was cleared to return to driving and to try out climbing at an indoor rock gym (only with a helmet). CTN discharged Tim at the end of July 2008.
Six months after being unable to stay awake, to swallow, to breathe on his own, to write, or to sit up by himself, Tim was doing so well that even friends couldn't tell that anything had happened to him. Some were shocked to hear that he had a lemon-sized blood clot removed from his brain in early January and had deep vein thrombosis in his leg near the end of his hospital stay. He has been through a lot and he has worked very hard to recover. Although he still has some remaining issues, he has learned compensations, and he still works hard to add to the healing that will continue, probably for years to come.
Tim canyoneering at Christoper Creek on 5/3/2009
On April 30, 2009, Tim attended his CTN graduation. The graduations are only once a year, and he wasn't ready to graduate at the 2008 ceremony. Kathy is glad to have her pre-brain-event Tim back and is truly amazed that the only real difference she knows of is that, occasionally when he moves suddenly, he feels "woozy." If he has any other after-effects, he has learned to compensate so well that no one can tell. Tim and Kathy are back to being climbing partners and helping at AMC rock climbing classes, and they are going on an annual 9-day technical canyoneering trip to Utah in 2009!
Tim has taken over writing the CarePage posts to let people know how he is doing. (Kathy wrote most of the posts before Tim could do them.)
Please email Kathy your email address if you are one of Tim's family or acquaintances and would like to visit his CarePage. Let Kathy know your connection to Tim in the email.
The CarePage has a "Patient Update" section for information on how Tim is doing. The page also has a "Message Board" section where Tim's supporters can post messages.
If you would like to know more details of Tim's ordeal, or to see all the support messages, click on the CarePage "Reverse Order" link to read posts in order from oldest to newest.