Traumatic Brain Injury After Sleeping At The Wheel

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In April of 2002, our eldest son fell asleep at the wheel on his way to an English Comp class. He had stayed up late to finish the paper he was about to hand in for that class. His car crossed the middle line of the country road he was traveling and hit the back wheels of a tractor trailer carrying steel pipe. Thank God, no one else was involved in the accident and the skilled driver managed to keep his pipes on his truck. The car spun around and landed on the shoulder of the road.

After 45 minutes, the Jaws of Life freed him from his vehicle to be taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital. When he arrived, they told us he had no brain activity. During the next 4 days, he began to show signs of reacting, only to have his intercranial pressure spike and return him to a "no brain activity" state.

During that time, we had little more than prayer to rely on because we signed paperwork saying that we would not bring any supplements or anything from outside in to him. However, my husband and I needed the oils to keep us calm and focused. We used a lot of the Peace & Calming oil blend.

Recently, studies have shown that if a certain area of the brain is kept from firing during those critical first hours/days, it decreases the chance for PTSD. So, perhaps having him smell the Peace & Calming on us helped in that regard.

After four days, he began to show more consistent signs of reacting, although the medical team was very guarded, if not somewhat pessimistic, about his prognosis. A nurse friend of ours convinced the nurse in charge of his care that his home did not smell like a hospital, so it would be good for us to bring in things that smelled like home. So I had someone bring a bunch of oils to the hospital.

Of course, we were not allowed to use anything around his head because of the apparatus attached there. His left leg was crushed, so it was in a cast and had the oxygen monitor attached. They figured that if he was getting blood oxygen there, then the rest of his body should be just fine. Fortunately, his blood oxygenation level was solid throughout. During our training, we were taught that the oils increase the oxygenation of the blood.

Our first thought, once we could use the oils was: the Valor oil blend! We knew that he was literally fighting for his life and needed all the courage he could muster. Since we only had access to his right foot for oil application, whenever we went into his room, I headed for that right foot while my hubby headed for the monitors.

The first time I put the Valor on his foot, within just a few seconds, my hubby shouted: "Whoa!"

Apparently, there were two monitors for the oxygenation level. Of course the percentage could never go over 100, but he saw the other gauge jump dramatically. The next time we went in the boy's room, we called in the nurse, who confirmed that it indicated that the oxygen level in the blood.

Before long, our son had major infection issues: meningitis from the monitors in his skull and pneumonia from the respirator. An infection specialist was called in and he was put on 4 very strong antibiotics - "for two weeks, then we will see."

At this point we brought in the ImmuPower and Thieves oil blends. We alternated the two. In four days, there was no sign of the meningitis.

It was two and a half weeks before they spoke to us about him leaving ICU (other than under a sheet). After a month in ICU, the boy was moved to skilled nursing because he was still in a coma. By this time, he had a tracheotomy and a feeding tube and the monitors were removed from his head. Now we could put the oils anywhere on his body.

His face, left arm, and left leg were covered with scars. I put Lavender oil on the scars.

The funny part of this was that the head nurse pulled me aside to tell me her nurses were suffering with headaches because of the Lavender oil. But one staff member advocated for us, saying that the oils really did make a big difference for him. So we were required to close the door and open the window whenever using the oils. No problem, it was springtime and very pleasant outdoors.

Oddly, however, a few days later several of the nurses seemed to find a reason to come into his room whenever I applied the Lavender and/or Valor. One came in one day, took a deep breath and declared that it smelled like he had been to church.

Gary Young always tells us, "Don't put anything on your skin that you would not put in your mouth."

We turned this concept around and applied nutrients to his arms and torso since he was not taking anything by mouth. I would dilute Mineral Essence and the Super B vitamin complex and do a massage.

His left leg was wracked with muscle spasms. We massaged it with Basil, Marjoram, Cypress, and Peppermint.

Another month passed and he was transferred to a rehab hospital. We grilled the reps at each hospital we visited. Since we had so much success with the oils that we insisted that we be allowed to continue to use them. Most places gave us a firm "NO!" We finally found one that would allow it, as long as we gave a list to their pharmacist.

At the rehab hospital, they removed the trache and the feeding tube. We worked with the dietitians to make sure that most of the food he got was nutritious. He had fresh fruit and veggies with each meal.

We continued using Valor and added Frankincense oil and the Brain Power blend. His college buddies borrowed the Brain Power for finals week and were thrilled with the results.

We also gave him scullcap and gotu kola tea with each meal. A few days after we started, he declared to the internist that the herbs gave him more pain relief than the drugs. You could have knocked the poor fellow over with a feather, because he had never heard the boy say two words, but this was delivered clearly in full sentences.

Four weeks to the day from when we started giving him the tea, he made a major cognitive leap. The speech therapist, who tried to push ritalin felt victorious that we had finally given in. We made sure she knew that was not even a possibility.

But we also found out that one of the meds he was given sent his blood pressure into the basement. So, between getting him off that and using the tea, he made steady progress.

He finally came home, four months after his accident. He was on no medication at all.

Of course, he was still severely impaired. He was wheelchair bound and needed constant attention. So we continued with the oils we had been using and added various other oils as the need arose, and as new ones became available. I also performed the Raindrop Technique on him, keeping in mind that the direction of motion is opposite from the way we usually perform it.

We used many of the nutritional products as well: Super B, Super C, Mineral Essence, the enzymes.... And we fed him a nutrient rich diet.

Six months after he came home, he left the wheelchair behind (except when we have long distances to cover).

As time went on, we found several other useful resources:

* Extra Virgin Coconut Oil has been shown to repair the myelin sheath throughout the nervous system, including the brain.

* Branched Chain Amino Acids help to rebuild damaged brain tissues. This has been observed in studies with rats with induced brain injuries.

* Chia Seeds contain very concentrated nutrients and they help to keep the digestive system healthy.

* Sea vegetables (we prefer dulse, but also use kelp and nori) provide a wide array of minerals which also help to repair damaged tissues and enhance the immune system.

A traumatic brain injury is not a simple issue, so it takes a good bit of resources and a great deal of commitment to wade through and get the best results possible. Many dire prognoses were put down on our son, and he surpassed every single one of them. He has slowly, but steadily progressed over the past 11 years, even after we were told we could expect no more progress.

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Additional keyword(s) assigned by the editor: cognition, concentration, confusion, forget, forgetfulness, forgetting, memory, neurological, paralysis, remember, remembering, scarring, seizure, seizures, surgery, tbi.