A Journey of Dad's Healing

On November 27, 2008; Eudras Prosperie's life changed in a moment. He was hunting, doing the thing he enjoyed most in life besides his family; all of a sudden he is fighting for his life.

It was Thanksgiving Day and Eudras, Joan and some of the children and grandchildren, were in Alabama at their hunting camp. He was out for an afternoon hunt and had just dropped off one of his grandsons at a deer stand, he was about 9/10th of a mile from their camp when his life changed, an accident that would turn his life and his family’s life upside down. No one really knows what happened, all we know is a friend, a member of the hunting club he belongs to, found him with the 4 wheeler on top of him. The accident reports say that the 4 wheeler flipped three times before pining Dad to the ground. He was rushed to a local hospital near his camp but his injuries were more than they could deal with so dad was life flighted into Birmingham, Alabama at UAB Hospital. There he would send the next 40 days fighting for his life.

From the accident, all of his injuries were on the left side. He had a punctured lung, broken ribs, traumatic brain injury, the left femur broke just above the knee and made its exit behind the knee cutting off the blood supply for about 8 hours. By the time he reached the UAB hospital his leg was black, the doctors gave him little hope of making it through the night and if he did, he would probability lose his leg. Against all odds, the doctors decided to do a vein transplant to save his leg, as soon he was stable. The next morning Dad had his first miracle, the left leg had been set in place by rods and he had perfect color and pulse to his lower leg. He was far from being out of the woods. A respirator would breathe for him. He was given amnesia med’s not to remember the trauma that he would endure. Mom lived in a hotel room near the hospital. Many friends and family members came together to support mom not just in prayer and physically coming to be with them but financially as well. Dad and mom have always been givers and what Jesus says about sowing and reaping is true. The blessings mom received was overwhelming.

From there Dad was transferred back to Louisiana, Thibodaux Regional Hospital for rehab. To make a long story short, dad was admitted into Thibodaux Regional three time and Terrebonne General once from January 5 to May 15. At this point dad was admitted into a Post Acute center for Brain Injury Patients where he ended up with a broken left hip. June 12, we had him transferred to Houston’s Medical Center with the hopes of having him admitted into Memorial Hermann TIRR (The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research) www.memorialhermann.org/locations/tirr/ TIRR has been rated #4 in the US News as “Best Rehabilitation Hospital in the USA.
For dad’s hip replacement he was admitted into Memorial Hermann Medical Center Hospital for 37 days then he was released to a Post Acute Skilled Nursing Facilities where he was for 65 days. Dad has been in and out of hospitals, 11 different hospital stay to be exact. He has used up almost all of his hospital days with Medicare and in order for his hospital days to start over, he has to be out of the system for 60 days straight days. He cannot be admitted into the hospital or we will have to start over.
From the time dad left Louisiana to Texas, our goal has been to get him into TIRR. Dad has been evaluated twice by TIRR from an in-patient stand point but because of the lack of Hospital days he would have to pay out of pocket, which is about $3000.00 per day. On November 16, he will be evaluated again by TIRR but from an out of Hospital stand point. We also have applied with DRS (Division for Rehabilitation Services) which are a government grant for brain injury patients, which he has been accepted. So the next step would be once the evaluation is completed by the TIRR doctor and faxed to DRS, DRS will released the information to their main office in Austin, TX then when the money is available; he will pay all expenses to TIRR.
In the last meeting I had with DRS, goal was to set a plan in place for when the monies are released or Medicare hospital days start over.
· 30 days of comprehensive rehabilitation services to include Physical/Occupational/Speech (TIRR)
· Residential Physical/Occupational/Cognitive therapies up 3 months (Mentis Neuro Rehabilitation http://www.mentisneuro.com/ )
· Outpatient services for Physical/Occupational/Speech therapy, up to 120 hours.(TIRR)