Evening Peter.
This is truly shocking. Absolutely dreadful news. Can’t bear it.
Thank you for letting us know. We must send positive thoughts .
As Peter says , our hearts go out to Jan and the Children.
Best.
Jane
On 5 Aug 2020, at 21:37, Peter Dixon <pcsdixon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Omg. My heart goes out to Jan and the children. So sorry to hear this and
hope and pray for his seedy recovery.
Peter D
Sent from my iPhone
On 5 Aug 2020, at 19:43, Peter Curtis <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear WVIC Members,
I know that some of you are aware of this shocking news but John Stringer
suffered a terrible accident on Monday and this is the update from
yesterday.
John is in the ICU at Southampton and Jan is visiting when she can ( very
restricted owing to Covid) and giving some updates.
I am sure that all of us in the Investment Club will be thinking and praying
for John.
Peter C.
Begin forwarded message:
From: Jan Stringer <janxstringer@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: 4 August 2020 at 18:40:17 BST
Subject: John
Dear All,
I'm guessing most of you know that John fell over yesterday whilst teaching
(or should I say playing football with pupils during the break!) and
collapsed. He has had an emergency op, is in a coma and things are still
dodgy. Here is the latest news.
Things are still critical, but he is still with us and battling on. I
managed to go and see him this morning, although not for very long as the
covid restrictions mean only one person in for an hour, three times a week.
It was pretty traumatic as he is more tubes, screens and bandages than man
and he is in a coma, so completely unresponsive. I held his hand and tried
to tell him news and was not very good at holding back tears. He probably
hated that, but lack of sleep meant I couldn't stop them.
There are glimmers of good news: they warned me they would leave his skull ;
off after the op as they expected the brain to be swelling too much and it
would need the extra room. However, it was put back - so presumably the
swelling wasn't quite as bad as they predicted. Also, they have managed to
stop the bleeding and remove the clot, so the brain is now clear of the
extra weight. (He has fractured his skull and severed both some arteries
and veins, no idea how many. They can see the brain is bruised and
possibly damaged, but we won't know for sure how badly until he is able to
sit up and talk.)
The other good news is that the boys in the lesson acted quickly getting
help, the ambulance arrived swiftly, John was seen in A and E immediately
and was there when he properly collapsed and became unconscious, so went
straight to ICU and Southampton were able to keep a neuro-surgery theatre
free for John's arrival and operated as soon as he got there. All of this
has meant his chances were improved.
Now they are monitoring his brain pressure and trying to keep him
completely stable. What they are wanting is for John's brain to stabilise
and stop swelling. The quicker it does this, the better and the sooner they
will try to bring him out of the coma. If you really want to know about
brain pressure then here it comes...
A healthy brain pressure is between 0 and 15. I do not know what you have
to be doing for it to hit 15 (perhaps weight lifting?) but that range is
considered normal. John's was at 21 whilst I was there and they wanted it
under 20. Creeping up towards 30 is what has to be avoided as that probably
means another op. They expect John's pressure to spike every now and then
(distress, coughing, high temp etc) but the fewer times it spikes and the
steadier it is (hopefully lowering all the time) the better. Since I left,
his pressure went up to 23/24 and they upped his sedation + medication and
it came back down again. Pressure coming down is good, extra sedation is
less good.
I've been told he will remain in an induced coma for a good few days. If he
has lots of pressure spikes, it might be beyond next weekend. They really
don't know. I pushed them for a longer - term prognosis, which they were
very reluctant to give, but said that he was doing ok so far and had done
really well to even get this far and we can possibly be 'cautiously
optimistic'. I'm clinging on to the last bit.
Lots of love,
Jan x
--
janstringer.com - 11+ Tutoring and Resources
