To all of Shaun’s friends and family! This is Tina, Shaun Arsenault’s mom. I will be regularly updating this site to let you all know how Shaun’s recovery is going.
Shaun’s story: On February 11, 2005 our lives changed forever. My son Shaun was in the United States Navy and due to many yet unknown reasons he decided to take his own life by taking 99 sleeping pills. Thankfully, Shaun’s conscience cut in and he decided he had made a terrible mistake and went to the Base medics for help. Unfortunately they did not seem to take him seriously and by the time they realized what was really happening Shaun had started to have seizures and had fallen out of his chair. I have been told a few different stories but to the best of my knowledge, from that point on, my Shaun had coded on them before he even reached the hospital. Shaun had no pulse or heartbeat when taken into the Hospital early that fateful morning. I thank god every day for the doctor that was on call that night for he never gave up on Shaun and kept fighting to bring him back to us. The Navy waited until 5:30 that morning to call and inform us of what had happened. We were told to get there as soon as possible as they didn’t believe Shaun was going to make it. That phone call will forever be etched in my mind. We made it to South Carolina by noon or so that morning and as we walked up to the hospital doors and saw the chaplain standing there I thought for sure we were too late. Walking into that room and seeing our son lying there hooked up to everything and them some is a sight I don’t want to ever see again. He was in a coma with all of his vital organs suffering damage and we were told that he was not expected to make it. This is where our Miracles started happening as he made it through that first night. By the next day we were told to bring in his brothers and the rest of the family to see him, because it didn’t look good for Shaun at all. After staying by his side and being told that each day that he didn’t wake up his chances for any type of a recovery were getting worse, he came out of his coma on day 13. As the Doctors evaluated Shaun they told us he had suffered an Anoxic Brain Injury due to lack off oxygen to the brain and that he would never be more than he was at that time, he would never know who we were, he would never be able to walk, talk, eat or do anything at all. He would be a vegetable. We would not accept that so from that moment on me and my entire family and friends rallied around Shaun and proved that Miracles do Happen. As we look at our Shaun every day we are looking at a Miracle. It has been a long and slow process but as of today January 27, 2007, almost 2 years later Shaun has far exceeded what he was ever expected to do. For those of you who see him all the time you understand that he has severe memory deficients, both with his long term and short-term memory. For those of you who haven’t seen him probably don’t understand that, so for anyone who wonders why they haven’t heard from Shaun, I hope you understand why. He was recently put on a medication to help with memory and we are seeing some
results with him, remembering a little more both of his past and with every day things.
We are just happy when Shaun can remember what he has eaten for lunch or dinner. Now
Keep in mind that he can’t remember what he’s ate but he can tell you the name of every state there is just by it’s shape, and has recently learned all of the state capitols... He loves to work his USA puzzles. Cognitively he has come a long way; he can focus on what he is doing now and pays great attention to detail and can understand and follow directions really well. We also laugh as he can now multitask and do more than one thing at a time. And when he runs into a problem he can problem solve and figure it out. As for his balance and walking again he has made tremendous progress. He is still full time in a wheelchair but the balance is a lot better and more controlled now and he can walk with a walker and our assistance. We are working really hard on the safety issues as Shaun continues to want to become more independent and do things on his own, such as getting out of his wheelchair and walking. We have discovered if Shaun just does something spontaneously (such as walking, blowing a bubble, etc.) he does it well, but if you ASK him to walk or blow a bubble he can’t do it. It’s really quite interesting how the brain works with stuff like that. Shaun has already had 120 Hyperbaric Treatments with some success so we are planning to go for more of those in the near future. Each and every day Shaun does something that just blows our mind and we never know what to expect out of him. He is retaining everything he is getting back, meaning once he learns something he is able to remember it such as peoples names, his birthday, where he went to college etc. Shaun still wants to say he is 16 years old and that he didn’t graduate from high school. We still cannot figure out why he is sort of stuck in that part of his past. When you give him hints and clues he can figure out that he is actually 27 years old now. So last year for his 1-year date we threw a party celebrating that he was still with us, and our motto was... MIRACLES HAPPEN... And now as we hit the 2-year mark we will again celebrate and our motto will now be... BELIEVE! You have to believe with all your heart that MIRACLES DO HAPPEN when you BELIEVE. I hope this website for Shaun will help everyone understand how things are going for him and to keep everyone up to date with his progress. For anyone that would like to say hello to Shaun, please post a comment on here, as we will let him read all of them.
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