Short version:
He's been very up and down, but when I left this afternoon, they were planning to move him from ICU to a regular room. (He had a fever so they were worried about infection, but the fever broke.)
Update: My mom just called and he has been moved to a regular room. Progress.
Please, please, please...
If you have or anyone you know has experience setting up a charitable foundation or contribution fund for a person's medical expenses, please contact me at cdmarine at gmail.
My brother will quite likely lose his job and will be unable to work for at least 6 months. He will also need months of therapy and rehab. There are a lot of students at EMU and a lot of fraternity brothers and a lot of friends who would be eager to help, and I'd like to work with his fraternity to set something up.
The longer story (some of which is from earlier updates):
He's been sort of up and down, but he made such rapid progress during
the first 18 hours that he's still doing very, very well for the
seriousness of his injuries. The pipe (which we now think actually may
have been a horseshoe stake) did not penetrate any brain tissue, and
they were able to completely eliminate the subdural hematoma. His
skull is now partially titanium, and they refashioned a sinus cavity
out of a small piece of abdominal fat. He does have a couple of
frontal lobe contusions, so as a precautionary measure, they have him
on anti-seizure medications. He was categorized as a multi-trauma
patient, and they shut down the entire trauma unit at the hospital when
he came in so that everyone available could work on him.
He's just incredibly lucky to have gotten treatment as quickly as he
did after he was hit, and incredibly lucky that he was near one of the
best trauma centers and best neurosurgeons in the state. I can't say
enough about these people and this hospital. They've just been
amazing.
So, anyway, he made astounding progress the first day. After surgery,
he was alert and aware. His memory of the time immediately preceding
the attack was spotty at first, but he recognized family and friends
right away, and had no trouble remembering things like his own name, or
the month and year. It's very hard for him to speak (partially because
they have him completely doped up on pain meds), but he manages to get
out words and phrases when he needs to. In fact, the best sign by far,
came when the police officer came to the hospital to take his
statement, and he said, "I know this is probably not the right time to
ask this, but do you have a boyfriend?" (the most words he's spoken the
whole time). So, he still has a sense of humor, and somewhere in
there, he still has at least some aspects of his personality intact.
Yesterday, he backslid a little, but that's not unusual. All the
activity of the first day was exhausting to him, and once the shock
started to wear off, the pain and swelling got much worse. He also
began to develop a fever, which is not unheard of in craniotomy
patients, but his was on the high end of normal, so they were worried
about infection. Fortunately, the fever broke, and as of when I left
this afternoon, they were planning to move him out of surgical ICU and
into a regular room. I do not know yet whether that's happened as I've been on the road for the last several hours.
There's security crawling all over this place for him. He is in the
hospital under an alias that even my family doesn't know. We have to
use a codeword to get any information from the nurse's desk when we
call. I guess this is what they do when they get victims of violent
crimes, especially when there are still suspects uncaught, as there are
in this case.
As far as what happened, we're starting to piece it together. We're
just getting little bits and pieces from each of his friends as they
come in to visit. Apparently there was a party at my brother's old
fraternity house at Eastern Michigan, and local alums often come to the
parties because apparently they have a very tight alumni organization
(and my brother is the VP). There were some party crashers who didn't
want to leave, but finally did. But instead of leaving the property
these guys hid behind the house and ambushed my brother and a bunch of
his friends as they were leaving. I think there were actually four of
them, and at least two of them were carrying "weapons." One of my
brother's friends was knocked out by a blow to the head with a bottle.
There was a scuffle, and then the guy holding the horseshoe stake swung
at my brother's head, and I guess he never saw it coming. He turned
around right into it. As soon as he dropped to the ground, I think the
thugs realized they'd just really fucked up and took off running while
the rest of the fraternity ran after them and put the serious hurt on
at least one of them. I think it must have been the one who hit my
brother, because he was arrested and charged with assault with intent
to do great bodily harm less than murder. He was supposed to have been
arraigned yesterday. He should be looking at 10 years, probably.
The most important thing is that my brother is alive, and we're all
very grateful for that. But, there's a good chance he will also lose
his job. He's worked for Wayne County at Metro Airport for a number of
years, but when they were slashing jobs, he ended up switching over to
work directly for the airport. He lost all of his seniority and union
protection and whatnot, and unfortunately, he was three weeks shy of
finishing his "new employee" probationary period. Technically, he's
not eligible for any protection, even from his new union, but his boss
is going to see if she can get them to make an exception. But the
thing is, even if he is allowed to go on leave without pay, it'll still
be without pay. He has a long recovery period ahead of him. The
doctors estimate it may be as much as 6 months before he'll be allowed
to work again. This is going to put us in a world of hurt.
Fortunately, he has a very tight and very large group of friends,
including all of his fraternity brothers (old and new), and they are
already organizing themselves into shifts to act as home nurses and
constant companions when he gets discharged. He will need help doing
everything from feeding his cat to writing checks and opening mail. He
will also need people around to keep him from doing stuff he's not
allowed to do, like cook, or do laundry, or play video games, or pretty
much anything remotely interesting, at least for the first month. His
friends have also been doing an amazing job of taking care of our
family by bringing food to the hospital, setting up an extra bedroom in
my brother's apartment for my mom to stay in the first week he's home,
and keeping everyone informed of what's going on. Everyone should be
loved as much as my brother is.
Which reminds me of one of the most important things for me personally.
I got a chance to talk to him alone and tell him how much I loved him,
and how proud I was of the person he'd grown up to be. Then I had to
leave because I could see that he was going to start to cry and I
wasn't doing much better. But I'm glad I got to say what I needed to
say.
BTW, if any of you have any experience or know anybody who has any
experience setting up a charitable foundation or donation fund for a
person's medical expenses, please let me know. I know there are a lot
of Eastern Michigan students and alumni, as well as other people he's
come into contact with at work and whatnot, who would be eager to help,
and if we can figure out how to do it, I'd like to work with his
fraternity to set one up as soon as possible.
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. I can't tell you how much
it meant to me to know that so many people were sending kind and
healing thoughts our way through those first awful hours.
Update:
I'm going to compile all these suggestions and links and whatnot so that we can follow-up on them. There is actually already a hospital social worker assigned to us, so I think a bunch of these questions we can address to her. I'm sure she would know, for example, if Michigan has a victim's compensation fund. It will be helpful for us to have some knowledge going into this process though so that we can be efficient in asking the right questions.
You guys have been really helpful and your words of kindness are like little life rafts. Thank you.
