![]() Experts now believe a staggering number of these patients - more than 40 percent, according to some estimates - are covertly aware, in what scientists have dubbed the "minimally conscious state." Thousands of people are discharged to nursing homes or acute care hospitals each year, assumed to be unconscious after suffering a severe brain injury. He was fortunate to have made it this far. But even they couldn't say how much Nick, 41, would recover. Doctors here, at TIRR Memorial Hermann, are among the best in the country at treating patients with so-called disorders of consciousness. The revelation amazed Danielle and Nick's parents, even if they weren't sure what it meant. ![]() One suggested removing his feeding tube, to help speed the inevitable. The doctors who saved his life told his family he would never regain consciousness. Nick was one of three who survived, but just barely. He and five others were gunned down by a former Marine and black separatist who had come from Missouri to Louisiana to kill cops. Then, last summer, she thought she'd lost him. "I feel like there's a big magnet between us," she'd told him early on, "just drawing us together." She started dressing up on days she knew he'd be there. Nick, a sheriff's deputy, would show up after his shift every other Friday, still in his uniform, and ask for Danielle by name. He still looked like the man she'd met four years earlier, when he was a regular at her salon in Baton Rouge, La. Nick Tullier stared back at his reflection, expressionless. "Are you ready for a trim, Nick?" Danielle said as she pulled out a set of electric clippers. He never would have let it get this long, she thought. Danielle McNicoll wheeled her fiancé into his hospital room after physical therapy, then turned his power chair to face a mirror and ran her fingers through his hair.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |