Thats a very sad and difficult situation, Im so sorry.Im not sure we can help a lot with all this second hand information.The fact that he has a wake/sleep rhythm and triggers the ventilator means that hes not brain dead. The first fact means hes probably moving to (at least) a persistent vegetative state.The chances that he recovers without important disability are slim. Its very hard to predict if this remains in the range of persistent vegetative state or if more consciousness will recover. A next step would be if meaningful communication would be possible.An MRI, EEG and the results of a neurological exam will help inform prognosis, but there still will be significant uncertainty.
Hi Docs & Medical Community -Coming to you all hear with some saddening news. It's been approximatley six weeks since my partner "attempted" suicide via hanging, and I have had extremely limited information on his current condition due to a variety of factors. These include being a non family-member, and his remaining family being very difficult to work with, less than caring of his current condition, and not being the ideal parents. The background for these are for another subreddit, but I'm happy to divulge any information if you all need more. I will try to be as analytical and non-emotional as I can in this post, as I'm only attempting to gather information from those directly involved in the field, as opposed to my resources of compiling random pages on the internet. Hope you all can help, and if you need any information please ping me.For security reasons, this is a throwaway, but I will be checking the post on my main account routinely and can log back in to answer any questions you all may have. Thank you very much for your help.I made an original post on r/TrueOffMyChest yesterday, that you can find here. It may have some information that may be relevant, although focuses more on my emotional state and less on the actual medical facts.---Patient Information: USA, 25M, 6'0", 192, White, Attempted Suicide Via Hanging - Hypoxic Brain Injury. No exisiting medical issues - daily workouts w/ weightlifting and cardio, very diet and food aware. Current medications include 20mg daily Wellbutrin, started 2-3wks before event happened. Prior to Wellbutrin, 20mg of Prozac daily. Casual smoker (vape-nicotine) and regular alcohol intake (2-3 drinks/mo). No recreational drugs. Past history of mild depression and anxiety, routine therapy. Zero previous suicide attempts or thoughts at self-harm.---The last several weeks have been quite stressful and devastating as you can imagine. There's a lot more to the information-specific side of the story, but the long story short is an abusive, neglectful, and incredibly religious mother, who has cut off her son. She is unwilling to call the hospital for daily updates, and obviously they can't release any information to myself or his friends, as we're not family. We have been able to get some limited information through friends of friends - my partner was a graduate school student in biology, and has many friends who know some individuals who work at the specific hospital he's at and were able to nail down some information. With the exception of yesterday's update, in which my partner's best friend drove to the hospital and used one of his friends there to squeeze some actual information (I'm not sure that's legal, but we are totally in the dark and the only person who has information will not share for her own greed), we know nothing concrete.The information yesterday was helpful in a way. For my full emotions, I can't say I'm any better, but from a purely medical standpoint I'd like some help deciphering it. Again, I understand this is a sticky situation involving HIPPA and legality, so want to be clear that I am not advocating for any unethical or illegal reporting standards. I fully understand the rationale and logistics behind HIPPA and it's protection laws. I hope, from a personal perspective, you all can see how we had to do what we did in order just to learn SOMETHING. I am not a judgemental person, but his mother is subjectively awful for her behavior in the past and now, withholding information and not even picking up half of the hospitals calls regarding updates about her own son. We just have to work with what we have.The reason I bring this up at all is due to the fact I want to stress the 'concrete' nature of the status update yesterday - while all of our other updates have had questionting validity due to them being passed through multiple sets of ears and open to interpetation, this one came directly from the source. Anyways, I will attempt to construe a timeline below:Mid-Feburary: Initial incident occured. I discovered my partner hanging by a constructed noose in his bedroom. While I don't know how long he was cut from oxygen, I know that it was >4min and <11min. If it was closer to 4, I'd assume he'd be awake by now. If it was closer to 11, I figured he may be confirmed brain dead and/or medically dead at this point.I called 911 and began CPR immediatley. 911 was quick response, and from call time to arrival was no more than 3-4 minutes. In this 3-4 minute period, I opened his airway and performed CPR while simeltaneously on the phone. I did not detect a pulse nor breathing, and once the EMTs arrived, they relocated me into another room for comfort & questioning while attending to him in the field. They shocked his heart back from AFIB, and I do not remember them confirming if they restarted his pulse.Late-Feburary: 13 days after event. I have no information. I am called by my attorney (who I called to be safe and attempt to find out more info) to see if he knows anyone who can get any contact update. I have contacted his mother by now who has expressed her disgust for her son and says he is an "unforgiveable sinner" and wishes not to be contacted by me anymore. When my attorney calls, he gives me no information other than "no brain activity." I immediatley assume brain death, and am disheartened (to say the least) at this news. I assume at this point that it is irreversible and he will not wake up.Early-March: Limbo period of no information update. My attorney can only guarentee me that he will have any information if she dies - in which case I will be informed.Through grapvine comprised of partner's close friends, limited information is listed that he has been transferred to a highly-rated neurosurgery hospital, and has been moved from "Critical" to "Critical-Stable". His body is improving, but no update on his brain status and activity. No one knows who authorized the transfer, or if it was done by the State or a hospital administration decision. His mother does not answer my request for comment. Brain activity has gone from "no brain activity" to "little to no brain activity" if that makes a difference - it did not to me, at least not at the time.Late-March/Present: Partner's best friend made the state-crossing drive to his current hospital, which as of yesterday, he is still at and not reported medically dead. Source-based information was relayed as follows: Still in "Critical-Stable" condition, with significant brainstem activity. They would not say if it was a persistent or permanent vegetative state, rather they listed it as a "medically-induced coma to allow the brain to heal." They implied that they COULD wake him up if he wanted, but they were holding off to see if he would have a better response. I'm unclear on what that means. They could not give him an exact date on when he was moved from one "level" of inactivity or trauma to the other, so I cannot confirm that. They said his OFFICIAL condition was "Stable, but Unresponsive" which could mean a number of things. I am optimistic that they have taken away the notion of a sudden brain death, but am trying not to a) get my hopes up, and b) speculate on anything that was not explicitly confirmed.In addition to those updates, they said his vitals were normal, and he had sleep/wake cycles, but no voluntary response to stimulation. Whether this is due to a brain injury or the medically-induced coma or some combination of the two is unknown. While he is still on a ventilator, it was reported that it is no longer breathing FOR him, simply assisting him in his breath. His heart was put on bypass, but is pumping on it's own at the moment. This is the last update I have.---So, here we are. This is a lot of words. I want to state - I don't know how to feel. I'm not writing this post for someone to sit here and tell me it's going to be okay. I know, logically, there is a very small percent change (<5%, if not smaller) of him ever waking up, and a fraction of that small chance of him being "normal" in the sense that he was.My intention with this post is to try and get some real life experience from those who have seen something similar or have an area of expertise in this field. I've read a LOT of things on the internet, some of which make sense, some of which don't, and some of which conflict each other.IF YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS OR NEED ANY MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. WILL UPDATE AS SOON AS I CAN.---I'm not religious, but ask all of you to send some good thoughts his way. You never know. I know that there are a thousand possibilities of varying severity through this outcome. I'm hoping it's the one that he's happy with.