Nathan Beland
This is the story of my son
Nathan Beland. He was a fairly happy, very healthy young man as seen in this
picture taken in Oct / Nov of 1996. About 6 months before his accident On May
10, 1997.
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.
Update December 2003: Nate Beland Passed away on December 17, 2003. His passing was SUDDEN and VERY UNEXPECTED. It was not anything respiratory related, but rather renal failure from abscessed kidneys that NO ONE detected. It was swift and private just him and I. In the privacy of his own home, no doctors, no nurses. Him and I, like he would have wanted. His viewing was Sunday December 21st 2003 and I had a celebration of his life the same day. I brought his ashes home on Wed. and his beautiful urn rests in his bedroom, and part of him remains in a cremation filigree cross worn around my neck. I take it off ONLY for showers.
He lived 6+ years longer than the doctor's predicted. He lead a VERY full and busy life, getting out into the community
at least 2-3 times a week to go to the mall, the movies, a walk in the park, the pottery studio, field trips to museums or shows, or fishing, and windsurfing IN HIS WHEELCHAIR on a Lake TWICE, trache and all. I made up 3 collages for the service. One detailing his life preinjury of May 1997, and 2 with his life after injury. It was strange to see them, how they went from slow, uncluttered, to VERY FULL, and BUSY on the last one.
I will greatly miss him, but I have peace in my heart knowing I tried EVERYTHING POSSIBLE on the earth to help him get better. We used a GREAT deal of alternative therapies, which seemed to work MUCH BETTER than conventional therapies for him.
I know he is FREE now, free of his broken body, free to run, play, TALK, free of any tubes or devices, no wheelchair. He touched so many lives all over this world, and I hope others will remember him and what he brought to them through
his medium.
Thank you all for your years of support.
God speed and God Bless.
Tammy and Nate (Forever)
Email Tammy
