Left Basal Ganglia Hematoma, Please help.

[TampaCCRN]

Hello Nurses,

I am a CCU nurse visiting your forum in seek of advice. My aunt was found down in her home. They brought her to the ER, and scanned her. She has a 3 x 6.6 cm hematoma in the left basal gangia that streches superior. They repeated the CT and it showed that there is no more bleeding and the swelling has gone down. There was no need for a drain, because there was no fluid build up and the brain has room at the present time. Clinically she is decerebrate to stimuli. However, after turning off the Diprivan for an hour, she did, weakly open her eyes to my mother's voice.

As a CCU nurse, I am not very optomistic, however I do know there have been those "miracle" incidences. I need help to decide how long I should give her to recover whatever there may be left without going overboard. Should I feed her? Should I pull the vent? I truly know that I don't want her to live as a vegetable for the rest of her life, but I do want to give her proper time to prove herself.

I would like to know, your experiences with patients of this matter to help me guide my decisions for my aunt.

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Without seeing the CT, doing a hands on assessment it is impossible to give any advice that would be worth anything.

Please, please, please ask for a family conference with the doctor in charge of your Aunt's case. This SHOULD give you more information to work with than what can be gleaned over the internet.

Although you are asking for others experience in this problem the experiences are likely to be too varied to assist your personal experience.

As the original question is one seeking medical advice the thread will now be closed