further update

In the comments to my last entry, elisem posted info from pnh, a longtime friend of Soren's:

OK. I just got a phone call from PNH, who is at the hospital. He says there are some encouraging things.

He said that the top priority right now is to bring Soren's blood pressure down from the scary heights it was at. There is definite progress on this; yesterday it was at two-hundred-mumble over oh-god, and now it's at one-hundred-something over well-that's-better-than-yesterday-at-least. (I'm sorry I don't have the exact numbers in my head, but I went from "sound sleep" to "phone call" without stopping to grab my number memory.)(ETA: It went from 220 over 166 at time of admission, to roughly 186 over 123 by the time I left around 11. -coyotegoth.) Get the blood pressure down and this reduces the risk of further bleeds, and the risk of all sorts of other things. Get him stabilized at a safer level, and then everything else can be addressed.

"Everything else" includes stuff like finding out exactly what the damage is and then working to get back as much function as possible. As Velma and a number of other people said, he doesn't have speech right now, though he's made some words here and there, and PNH reports that Velma said he achieved a couple of phrases during the night. ("Oh, come on!" being the most memorable, apparently; last night Patrick said that Soren's pissed off, which is kind of a good sign, you know?) Patrick says that though Soren's not talking, he is answering questions with eloquent gestures. TNH asked him point-blank, "Do you have language?" and she got a strong affirmative nodding in reply. This is major goodness, because he's in there processing, even if his speaker isn't working at the moment, and he can communicate that he is processing. That's somewhere to start, when getting things back, and it's a pretty darned big somewhere, even though we're not to the "OK, what's the recovery and rehab plan?" stage yet.

Getting to that stage is the goal right now. Sounds like they're making progress, but there's no official word yet on what's what. But Soren's in there, and he knows we're out here, and messages are being exchanged.

So that's where we are right now. (Hope I got it right; still kinda sleep-foggy.)

Short form: still scary situation, not out of the woods yet, but recovery definitely a possibility. Encouraging signs: BP coming down, and Soren is definitely in there and communicating even if he can't speak.

So now we hope and wait and do the things we do, and let the docs and nurses do the things they do, and we see how it goes.

...to which I add, roadnotes has just posted a comment in which she says that doctors are talking about weeks- not months; not years- of recovery. Candles are lit; fingers crossed.

anniversary

A year ago today, I performed the wedding ceremony (pic behind link) that joined my best friend frost_knight to his lady love, cchan8. Again and always, may the Lord and Lady grant them all possible happiness and fulfillment.

latest update

From elisem: "I think the (baldanders's blood pressure) numbers pnh gave me this morning were 150/100, which, if I heard them right, are major continuing improvement."

ETA: roadnotes adds: Prayers, good wishes, good vibes, what-have-you are all appreciated. And if there's anything that might affect the universe positively in his direction, it would be one of his other great loves: music. So make music, or listen to music.

In the spirit of, "Fuck it- here's some zebra footage..."

This made me laugh out loud- and right now, that's saying something:


Man attempts to hypnotize a duck¹; receives his just desserts.



¹Well, that's what it looks like to me.

( Also, a baby duckling feeding some fish. )

( And- what the hell- there’s even a video of a baby turtle getting down to cases with a strawberry. )

(no subject)

Per a comment on my latest entry on the situation with baldanders’s stroke: “His BP got low enough that the nurse decreased the meds, increased his fluid intake. When I left, the average was in the 117/75 range, with a couple of spikes in the high/normal range.”

(See also this entry at Making Light, which has much additional information.)

Also? Please get your blood pressure checked. This past week, I’ve read about *three* incidents of heart attack or stroke involving flisters and/or family members- and my mother just had a blood pressure scare, as well. (Not to mention my father, who’s been living with angina for twenty years.)