I’m very proud of my recovery from this injury, so I’ll include this as well. I sustained a major TBI a month and a half ago, the result of a boxing accident, which required surgical intervention. Outcomes for my specific injury are not good. The results are often death or vegetative state. My prognosis wasn’t clear initially; we didn’t know if I’d walk again, if I now had cognitive or language impairments, if the part of my brain which regulates consciousness had been damaged, etc. In this album, , you see my first time walking in the ICU —propped up by 2 people, attached to all these machines with tubes and needles sticking out of me. The second gif is me testing my coordination for the first time, 3 weeks post surgery. The third gif is me realizing I could do the same task southpaw (backwards) 4 weeks after my craniotomy, which is something I had never even attempted before my injury. I’m on the path to a full recovery!
I’m in the hospital again to manage pain after my cranioplasty, so I unfortunately don’t have any new GIFs of me rocking my recovery after having the bone reattached. I’ll field some of the most common questions I got in my previous post instead. 1) How did this injury happen? Like I said, I was a boxer. The scary thing here is that there was no loss of consciousness. I didn’t even leave my feet. I drove home afterwards and had a conversation with my girlfriend. I began noticing signs of neurological dysfunction in the shower, and once I threw up, I knew I had to go to the hospital.
2) What was the reasoning behind removing the skull? My brain was bleeding, and there was major cranial herniation. My brain tilted 5 millimeters by the time I got to the hospital. The bone was removed to drain the excess blood/cerebrospinal fluid which was causing the tilt, and the bone was left off for some time to give my brain room to swell. The concavity in my Before picture here is what my head looked like when the swelling was finished.
3) Do I now have a prosthesis? No, it’s my original bone in there. The bone is secured with titanium plates and screws.
Besides the pain you’d expect from adjusting to titanium additions to your skull, I’m doing great. I’ll be taking it slow with recovery from this major surgery, but as far as my care team and I can tell, I should be back to living my pre-injury life with all bells and whistles in no time.
Edit: Again, well played to the mod who tagged this as Mindblowing.
amanyggvv on March 11st, 2019 at 12:09 UTC »
Nice! The surgeons did a great job!
Jakob535 on March 11st, 2019 at 12:10 UTC »
Did any one else read this wrong and think this guy literally sat in a freezer for a month?
QuiGonGiveItToYa on March 11st, 2019 at 12:22 UTC »
I’m very proud of my recovery from this injury, so I’ll include this as well. I sustained a major TBI a month and a half ago, the result of a boxing accident, which required surgical intervention. Outcomes for my specific injury are not good. The results are often death or vegetative state. My prognosis wasn’t clear initially; we didn’t know if I’d walk again, if I now had cognitive or language impairments, if the part of my brain which regulates consciousness had been damaged, etc. In this album, , you see my first time walking in the ICU —propped up by 2 people, attached to all these machines with tubes and needles sticking out of me. The second gif is me testing my coordination for the first time, 3 weeks post surgery. The third gif is me realizing I could do the same task southpaw (backwards) 4 weeks after my craniotomy, which is something I had never even attempted before my injury. I’m on the path to a full recovery!
I’m in the hospital again to manage pain after my cranioplasty, so I unfortunately don’t have any new GIFs of me rocking my recovery after having the bone reattached. I’ll field some of the most common questions I got in my previous post instead. 1) How did this injury happen? Like I said, I was a boxer. The scary thing here is that there was no loss of consciousness. I didn’t even leave my feet. I drove home afterwards and had a conversation with my girlfriend. I began noticing signs of neurological dysfunction in the shower, and once I threw up, I knew I had to go to the hospital.
2) What was the reasoning behind removing the skull? My brain was bleeding, and there was major cranial herniation. My brain tilted 5 millimeters by the time I got to the hospital. The bone was removed to drain the excess blood/cerebrospinal fluid which was causing the tilt, and the bone was left off for some time to give my brain room to swell. The concavity in my Before picture here is what my head looked like when the swelling was finished.
3) Do I now have a prosthesis? No, it’s my original bone in there. The bone is secured with titanium plates and screws.
Besides the pain you’d expect from adjusting to titanium additions to your skull, I’m doing great. I’ll be taking it slow with recovery from this major surgery, but as far as my care team and I can tell, I should be back to living my pre-injury life with all bells and whistles in no time.
Edit: Again, well played to the mod who tagged this as Mindblowing.