u/FinIey42

To keep it brief, 72 yo father fell a couple weeks after a triple heart bypass. Had a brain bleed followed by multiple surgeries. Craniotomy, Craniectomy, Cranioplasty, and then he had to do a drain for fluid buildup.

Good News is he's doing much better since they put his skull back on, improvements all around, walking, talking, balance, etc.

Bad News is he's extremely restless. I'm constantly moving him around our house. If I move him to one room, he wants to move back in 15 minutes. If I move him to go to sleep, he wants to come back out, etc etc.... Still has toilet issues where he'll think he has to go to the bathroom and then doesnt go, or goes too fast, there's some problem with that signaling in his brain ontop of being elderly.

But the restlessness is the most troublesome symptom, wondering if any TBI survivors had this issue and what you did to help resolve it?

My 72yo Dad is 2 months out from his TBI, acute hematoma, craniotomy, craniectomy.

I'm helping the best I can but it's about a 5 weeks after he's been out of the hospital and I'm completely drained. I'm 43m and ended up leaving my job to do this as it's more important to me he gets better. The only thing he can do reliably is eat food. Everything else is a depressing struggle, moving him from chair to walker to wheelchair to toilet. I'm strong enough to do it, but he's about the same size as I am, he's 6'3 225 so keeping him balanced and such is a lot of work. Moving him once a day would be ok, but I'm moving him a lot during the day.

I try to keep him walking but his left side alternates from being weak to paralyzed. So a lot of the time he's either dragging or just falling over toward the left. He doesn't seem to be improving and we don't know where to go from here as the information we've gotten has been weak. Would he be better off just laying in bed all day? I figured anything is better than bed rotting....I've gone out of my way to avoid using the wheelchair for the most part as I'm afraid once we start using that, he's never going to regain mobility.

He has a cranioplasty coming up where they replace the skull piece, will this improve things? I'm trying hard to avoid putting him in a nursing home. If I wasn't able to help my mom with this, he'd likely have to go to one as she is unable to move him or take care of him, she's a frail 120 pounds.

Its been a soul crushing nightmare for us. We have home health therapists coming 2-3 times a week too. Any advice on what we should do going forward? What helped you or your family? Anyone reading gone through this as well and what did you end up doing?

My Dad suffered brain bleed and surgeries and is about a month into recovery.

Just wondering from other people with TBI or caregivers, what are some good physical exercises I can get him into that are light but effective?

Currently we're just doing small walks in our garage with the walker for 15-20mins daily, and he used the walker to go to the bathroom, maybe another 30 feet each time. His left side is a bit weak, especially his left foot.

I have a 72 year old father took a fall, that left him unconscious for a couple minutes, had a brain bleed, requiring emergency craniotomy and craniectomy.

He spent 2 weeks in a rehab where he got basic therapy. Hour a day of speech, occupational, physical.

He's coming up at the one month mark and I'm worried about what's permanent and what's going to recover. I have that disturbing thought that giving him the surgeries saved his life but may have set him up for years of suffering...

Left side of his body is weak but it's moving. He sometimes has to pick his left leg up if he's tired. He's able to use a walker for the most part albeit slowly. And he's able to do everything he needs to as far as eating himself, etc...

The speech issues seem to be the biggest problem, voice has changed a little bit, and for the most part he avoids talking unless he has to...he can put out a sentence, usually "i have to go to the bathroom" but I don't think he's talked much past a single sentence.... His personality seems to be intact but he just doesn't want to talk much. We have hired a speech therapist to start next week on him.

I've been doing everything I can to help him, keep him active, talk to him, playing boardgames, while encouraging him to solo some things.

Still having issues where he pees otw to the bathroom and at times he goes to the bathroom and nothing happens (is this normal for TBI?)

The last 3 weeks have been a total nightmare, completely exhausting for me and my mother.

Anyways, looking for similar stories and knowledgeable people to tell me what I should expect realistically, is he going to be disabled the rest of his life or can he recover from all of this and become independent again?

My 72yo father took a bad fall a few weeks ago, had a brain bleed, subdural hemorrhage and intracerebral hemorrhage. Went to the hospital, needed emergency surgeries, craniotomy and, then a couple days later, a craniectomy because of the swelling.

Amazingly he's made it to rehab. He's about 3 weeks from the injury itself.

He's been mostly awake outside of the anesthesia, but he does take a lot of catnaps throughout the day. He's able to feed himself, and do simple tasks and he's aware of immediate surroundings, has some trouble following things on tv and conversations somewhat, his short term memory is weak, but long term memory is intact. He's been able to walk with the walker a bit. Still needs some help getting to the bathroom and back, but slowly getting better in areas.

Just wondering if anyone who has been through this has a general timeline for this kind of thing, like when he'll regain his wits, personality, energy levels. Will it likely be 3 months, 6 months, or years? At what point do you end up saying, welp I guess this is just how it is now.

Thanks for sharing in advance.