My (Michael's) Updates.

As some of you might know, I've been updating people on Sara's condition through several webforums. I figure that since we now have a dedicated place for such things, I should post my updates here.

These posts are in chronological order, the first of which I wrote on Wednesday (the day of the accident) and the last of which was written last night.

Post 1:
"Just so you guys know, I might not be here for a while. My sister got in a car accident. I'll keep you posted."


Post 2:
"Well, we know what happened. Luckily my sister isn't at fault and nobody else was injured. Here's the story: She went to go change lanes, began moving over, you know, the usuaul. She was about to get hit by sombody in the lane she was going to enter, so she swerved and overcompensated, the car fishtailed and she went off the right side of the road, the car went into a ditch and rolled over then caught fire, knocking her unconcious.

Luckily her car is a tank -- even though it has no airbags (but the paramedics said that airbags wouldn'tve helped anyways) but her pillars were strong enough to support the car long enough for the rescue people to get her out of the car and into an ambulance. When she got here she was pretty beat up, no real broken bones that we know of aside from a slight cranial fracture. When she showed up at the hospital she had an altered mentality, and she was subdued to prevent complications.

I know other details but I would really rather not share most of them. the good news is that she just got out of the MRI and should be headed to the ICU now, so she's still alive."



Post 3:
"Throughout the night, her condition has gotten worse. She's still alive, but here's the story. Due to the head injury, the hospital staff sedated her while she was in the ICU at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, letting up the sedation medication every hour or so to see if she has become more responsive. I don't know when it happened, but I basically just got the news (not more than 10 minutes ago) that when they last lightened the dose of the meds, she didn't respond to anything (whereas before she responded to pain). They ran a scan on her and found a blood clot in her brain, however they can't perform the surgery like normal due to her other conditions. It would kill her.

As I type this, my sister is in a transport helicopter on her way to the UC Davis medical center, where there's a doctor that will be able to perform a very complicated surgery (going through veins and stuff) to clear that blood clot. Assuming she lives, chances are fairly high that she will be permanently mentally damaged, perhaps even to the point of retardation. I swear to god on a stack of bibles, though, that if I could find whatever fuckwit came behind her on the freeway and made her swerve, I would put my foot so fucking far up their god damned ass they'll be eating my fucking toes.

I'm not making any of this up, either. Sara's car is really totalled and she's really in a helicopter right now going to Davis. It's just shocking that something like this hit so close to home, not only for me but also for all of us, as I'm sure most, if not all, of you know Sara, and she went to Tech High as well. As I'm writing this I'm trying to suppress my tears really badly, but it's really hard to think that my only living sibling may end up being mentally retarded for the rest of her life or even dead."



Post 4:
"My sister's still being operated on at UC Davis, but there's some wonderful news: She's responsive. The doctors lightened up her meds to do the surgery and as they've got more of the blood clot out she's opened up her eyes and tried to hit one of them (which is totally something Sara would do in this sort of situation, not because she doesn't like doctors, but because it's probably a shock to have strange people poking around inside her), so obviously my sister's still alive and kicking (literally?) I'll be headed over to the UC Davis medical soon. I'll keep you updated."



Post 5:
"I am sitting at the UC Davis medical center right now. Sara is out of surgery now and moving, too. The doctors are doing another CT scan that should be done in about 45 minutes. The scan is so they can see if she has developed another clot. Also, thank you all for the tremendous support. I appreciate it."


Post 6:
"Just got home from the medical center.

The good news:
My sister's become more responsive. Poking her ear, rubbing her shoulders, touching her and talking to her make her eyes move (Although they're still closed), but she is responding. Also, we talked to her and she began to tear up. This is all very good news. Basically now she's just asleep. The respirator isn't helping her as much as her nervous system has taken back over, and as I said she's responding to sensory inputs.

On a somewhat related note, I visited my school today. The amount of support I saw was amazing and I was actually shocked. The entire school knows (my sister is a former student there) and they all know her too, and most of them are on good terms with me. I didn't even get three feet from my car before a crowd of ~10-15 people basically mauled me with hugs. It was simply amazing.

The bad (but not extremely so) news:
I almost got hit in a car accident on the way home. I don't even completely remember what happened but I know it involved a big rig stopping abruptly in the lane next to us and my dad getting us away just before the traler hit us. Somebody else wasn't as fortunate and ran into the back of the truck then got hit again from the back, their car was totalled but they were fine. My dad called the police and helped the guy who got hit to get his car off of the freeway (and almost got hit 4 times in the process), and then we were on our way. But man, that shook me up bad. I had to walk it off kind of bad. Had my dad not reacted as abruptly as he did, and I wouldn't be talking to you all now (I'd be alive, but probably at some hospital or something). So despite being a little shook up, I'm still alive and well. But god damn, it feels like the world is coming down all around me. First my sister and today, almost me, too.

Now if you will all excuse me, I am going to go take a long, hot shower, and go to sleep. God knows I deserve it."

Post 7:
"Oh god. We found out something.

She's not been in a coma. She never was. She's what the doctors call "Trapped In", where her brain can think just fine and her body is fine but the two can't communicate well. The portion of her brain that had the clot ended up having a stroke so she can't control some parts of her body.


Now, the real problem here is this:
Nobody has any idea where to go from here. It could get better, it could get worse or it could stay the same. What's worse is if she doesn't change her condition. She can't speak, they only know that she's in there by telling her to move her eye up for yes and down for no then asking her yes and no questions. The doctors did that and she got all but one or two questions right about what happened over the past two days. As you can probably imagine (and I can only), She's probably terrified because she does know that she's not well and she does know what's going on.

So there's a few different paths from here. The part of the brain that had a stroke might not be dead. If it isn't, bringing her into a drug induced coma so the brain can rest would be the most reasonable option, and speed her recovery greatly. If that part of the brain IS dead, it'll take a lot of time to get her to the point where we can even care for her outside of the hospital.

Because she can answer yes or no questions, my mom asked the doctors to ask Sara the following question:

"If you stay like this (this being the "trapped in" dealio), would you want to stay alive?"


Now, My mom does NOT have to do what my sister says, however my mom has told me that if Sara does not want to live, she will not force her.

All this is very hard to cope with, to be honest. She's heard everything. She's felt everything. She's thinking normally, but can't move most of her body. Kind of like being covered in saran wrap.

What we're looking at here could be such a broad array of things that for the most part I can't even imagine what it's like for her. On one end of the spectrum, she might prove everybody wrong and make a full recovery (although it's nigh impossible due to the stroke). She could end up getting to the point where my mom could care for her at home. She could end up staying just like she is now, needing life support to stay alive, or she could end up dead. I'll be completely honest here, too.

For her sake, I don't know which one would be best. Thank god I'm not at liberty to decide, because I wouldn't be able to."