Nate is about the same as he was 3 years ago since going through his initial 41 treatments of HBOT in Florida. He ended up getting an ambient HBOT chamber to use here in the comfort of his own home. We use it to keep his spasticity at bay and not have to have oral or intrathecal baclofen.

In November 2001 Nate's rate and manifestation of seizures changed from one a month to as many as 96 a day. We have been on a quest of various therapies, (Traditional and alternative), doctors and medications to try to control them. Nate had developed servere osteoporosis and cannot partake in the normal/traditional PT OT therapies. So for the past year we have been traveling to Canada to be evaluated and retrained in Advanced Biomechanical Rehabilitative therapy, taught by a man from Russia. This therapy has helped in restoring Nate's musculoskeletal system to his preinjury physical structure, and we have a long way to go, but changes are a happening. He took part in his senion prom with a date, and also took part in high school graduation ceremonies obtaining a certificate of completion this past May and June 2003.

For now our focus is ABR therapy, cranial sacral therapy, cell salt therapy, cell signal enhancer therapy, HBOT and community outings. He has remained healthy as ever without illness or hospitalizations since Oct 2000, and I believe this has everything to do with his natural / organic GFCF, dairy free, yeast free, wheat free, soy free, sugar free and red meat free diet I feed him.

He still cannot do anything for himself, and if that is how he remains, then that is fine with me, I love him no matter how he is. He can in a very primitive way get his needs across through means of his eye blinks, games of 20 questions of yes or no, body signals and facial expressions and his communication device. I remain ever hopeful he will continue to progress to a point further than he is currently at.

He is and will forever remain MY HERO.

Nate Beland (TBI 5/10/97, hemispherectomy, hemicraniectomy, permenant tracheostomy, G tube, quadriplegia, osteoporosis, hydrocephalus, VP shunt, vocal cord closure, complex partial seizure disorder, 20 years old, 6 years post injury, 14 t time of injury.)

Hugs
Tammy (Natet online)

Nate is a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor, a victim of a pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle. He now lives with 1/3 of his right hemisphere of his brain gone forever, has 1/3 of his skull piece overlaying that area of defect gone forever, is on his 2nd shunt in 3 years for maintenance of Hydrocephalus, has a permanent tracheotomy, and G Tube. It was not a drunk driver, or a hit in run, the woman claims she never saw him walking along the side of the road, despite the fact he was walking under streetlights, AND wearing his jacket with bands of reflective material in clear view. He was with his cousin returning for some fun of shooting hoops at the community field. He was in his father’s care at the time of the accident. I got the call at 11 p.m. that night, and have been with my son ever since that day. Nate’s original prognosis was death. He was not expected to live given the extent of damage to his brain. He was in a deep coma, in Pediatric Intensive Care, and after 1 ½ months transferred to a Rehabilitation facility out of the state of New Hampshire. There were no facilities in our state that accepted pediatrics on Ventilators. The whole ordeal left me very soured on the medical community. The PICU were he was refused to acknowledge his making progress and fighting to come out of coma. His movements were quickly explained away as merely primitive and reflexive, not purposeful. He opened his eyes independently without any stimulation, 19 days after his injury. However it took me 2 years and 2 different doctors to finally agree with me that my son was not in a Persistent Vegetative State as he had been deemed and classified.

Nate is one tough kid. He has always responded to me from the beginning, and continues to do so. While at the Rehab, he developed high temps, yet they refused to listen to me. The docs said his body thermostat was injured, that was why he had the temps. In July 97 I felt a collection of fluid next to his right ear. He was rushed to Boston Children’s Hospital and found to have a brain abscess. (Thus explaining his high temps) He went immediately to the operating room for placement of Drainage tubes. Went back to rehab, then 6 days after returning to the rehab went back for a follow up CAT scan, which showed the infection back again. He again went right to the OR, for revisions to be made to his shunt to help pull out the infection, and he got a Central Veinous Catheter put in for long term administering of antibiotics. While all this was happening he developed pneumonia. (He had by this time made it off the ventilator)

The docs got the infection under control and he was released once again back to rehab. Then Oct 3, 1997 found him again spiking high temps, and he went back to Boston Children’s Hospital. This time his bone flap came out for good. It had been harboring staph organisms, which were causing his brain infections, and then it lost its blood supply, died and had to be removed. Then Nate’s shunt plugged up, and that had to come out, and be replaced. Then he developed adhesions from placement of his G Tube and had to have surgery for that.

All total he spent 8 months in ICU’s, Acute care hospitals, and Rehabs. He never really got the aggressive rehab he needed. The facility kept raking in the money from the State for his care, but didn’t rehab him. They gave him only PT, OT, and Speech 3 times a week for ½ each one. I took up the slack providing to my son what the “Professionals” should have provided.

Finally on January 8, 1998 I brought my son home to live with me. What a great day that was.

Since then Nate went through 4 aspiration pneumonia’s, and in July ‘98” I had to have the doctors surgically close his vocal cords, so he could no longer aspirate one his own secretions. A procedure that proved to save his life once again.

In October 1998 he contracted an organism called Serratia, and he got a severe blood poisoning from it, and we almost lost him again, but he proved very tough and made it through that.

When I brought him home, the school district where we lived decided they did not want or need a child like Nate in their system, and chose to segregate him, and school him at home. What was supposed to be 5 hours a week only was 2. So for a year I spent fighting with the school district, and doctors about my son. Finally in November he got accepted into a different rehab, one that had just a year before denied him admission claiming “He was too far past injury to be helped”. He was there 3 weeks and quickly shuffled out of their system, but helped get him accepted into a special needs school. This new school has been good for him. Provides him with the necessary PT, OT and Speech services that one can get in only 3 days a week, 5 hours a day. But it has been good for him.

In April this year 2000, I accidentally fractured his left femur doing a stand transfer with him, that he had been doing well at for 2 years. He had severe hypertonia due to his brain injury, and I tried to break his tone, not realizing his bones were so weak, and I broke his leg. Then April 25th, 2000 I took him down to Fort Lauderdale Florida to under go Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments, and while there during a PT session, he broke his right hip. I had to med flight him home to New Hampshire, where he underwent surgery for a plate and screws to hold his hip together to heal. Which brings me up to present.

These 3 years have been ever so long and slow but, very rewarding. Nate is not in a PVS state, as some doctors still like to believe, he is progressing very slowly in school, he communicates with others through means of eye gaze, facial expressions, and eye blinks. 3 blinks mean yes, and 2 mean no.

After only 41 Hyperbaric Treatments, I saw total submission of Nate’s Hypertonia, that was so severe the doctors wanted me to put a Baclofen pump in him. He is making much better eye contact, can follow some simple commands to move his arms or legs, and is moving his whole body much more than he ever was. As you can see from his picture above, this is his smile after 3 years of not having one.

I know we both have a long way to go, but as I tell Nate never give up.

The good lord chose not to take him from me at the very beginning, not since so far, I don’t think he is ready for him. I truly believe that Nate is here to show something to others. Quite possibly the medical community, to say “Hey there is more to life and quality to that life than you will ever know.

He is why I get up everyday with a smile on my face and in my heart, and he is what I live for. Now mind you I have a wonderful husband, but he knows, my child comes first, and he is very accepting of that. Nate had been approved by the state for 16 hours of RN or LPN care each day, but out of 106 hours a week, I can only find at the maximum, 24 hours of help. No one will come help us because I have a “Reputation” out there in the field as being too strict and too demanding. Well I am proud of that, it is those qualities that have helped my son survive and go on in life, despite the medical community’s prognosis and predictions.

I am his mother Tammy (“NATET” online) and I love my Nate.

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