Hi everyone, I'm so sorry I didn’t realise I’d had so many people reply until I’d seen Win‘s comment come through on my email, the notifications must have gone into my spam for some reason. I'm really sad to say that after 4 months of fighting, my dad contracted the coronavirus last week while in hospital and passed away two days ago. Since my original post he hadn’t really made any progress neurologically, but he was hanging in there. This sadly proved too much for him, but he’s no longer suffering. Due to the virus, he wasn’t allowed any visitors whatsoever, so we couldn’t be there when he passed, we can’t see the body and we can’t even give him a proper send off. Losing my dad in the midst of a global pandemic is proving very surreal. Because I haven’t seen him, I feel like he’s just still in hospital. I’m sure it will feel more real in the coming weeks. I really want to thank you all for being so kind and taking the time to reply. Our story has had a sad ending, but all the hospital staff who cared for him were truly amazing and did their best. During our time in the neuro ward I saw many other people make remarkable recoveries, so it just goes to show that there is hope after brain injury. I wish all of you the best, Thank you so much Gem x

Hello everyone, I can’t actually believe I haven’t thought to look and see if there were any forums or support groups on SAH’s before now! I’ve had a browse through some posts (it’s past my bedtime but after visiting dad today my mind is on overdrive) and I’ll definitely need to have an in depth read tomorrow, you all seem like such a lovely bunch. My dad had a catastrophic SAH nearly 9 weeks ago. I actually can’t believe he survived but he’s still here plodding along despite many complications, vasospasm, a tracheostomy and recurring infections. He’s been ‘awake’ for about 7 weeks but neurologically hasn’t made much development since then. I don’t even know if he knows I’m there. Some days he seems more present than others. He can’t speak yet, or respond, or indicate he understands anything. The last 2 weeks he’s been a bit more responsive, turning his head more, moving his left hand, looking around, if you make a loud noise he sometimes looks towards it. I know it’s a long, long road and everyone recovers at their own pace, and it’s really impossible to know how each individual will recover if at all. You try to figure out what the next step is but all the doctors can (understandably) tell you is “we have to see how he goes”. I’m really struggling mentally with it. We’ve had a difficult relationship but at the end of the day he’s my dad and I love him, it just adds to the heartache of it all. That on top of trying to travel up regularly (I live 2 hours away so I’m only managing once a week), protect him from greedy family members, trying to make the right decisions and asking the right questions for him. It’s a lot of pressure. And this may sound absolutely terrible, but in the state he’s been in for such a long time, I wonder if he doesn’t get better then what was the point of all this treatment? Would it have been kinder for them to have let him go? And then I feel terribly terribly guilty. Even though I know it would be his worst nightmare. How did you all cope when your loved one was in hospital and the outcome wasn’t clear? How did you stay strong? What got you through? If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings Have a great day Gem x