My brother and his family.

[Verisimilitude]

About 3 years ago my brother was injured in an job related accident where he received 3rd degree burns from steam over 50% of his body to include his torso, chest, arms, and face and was in a coma for almost 2 weeks. The burns have healed well, but the steam blast knocked him down where he hit his head.

I just received an e-mail from my sister that lives near him. She describes:

Hello everyone… Renee, obviously, has enough on her plate right now in caring for Joe, Isaac, working full time and dealing with her own medical issues. …Right now, Renee has a lot of anger, hurt and frustration that she is dealing with.

Joe suffers from psychomotor retardation also known as motormental retardation. This is most apparent in his speech. I got this from the internet:

“Psychomotor retardation often presented as a general slowdown in all areas as well as extreme slowdown in self-care activities such as dressing and eating. “

…He has also been diagnosed with subcortical dementia. I got this definition from the internet as well:
Subcortical dementia refers to a clinical syndrome characterized by slowing of cognition, memory disturbances, difficulty with complex intellectual tasks such as strategy generation and problem solving, visuospatial abnormalities, and disturbances of mood and affect.

The injury to his brain is just above the brain stem. There was also an unknown time of hypoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain). From what I’ve read online Hypoxic Brain Injury appears to describe Joe completely.

In addition to this, Joe has double vision. …
Joe has outbursts of anger and even violence to a degree (breaking things in anger, etc).

All of these behaviors are getting worse. His memory will continue to deteriorate, much like Alzheimer’s. They are considering trying Aricept to see if it has any effect on Joe, but they do not know for sure due to the brain injury. Joe is currently on Lithium in an attempt to control some of his behaviors and mood swings.

…The insurance company recently tried to cease paying for his rehab. They had to call their lawyer to pressure the insurance company into paying to which they have now agreed to do…

…I think this is hard for all of us, but most importantly hard on Joe and Renee and Isaac.

I love you all…

They are in their mid-40’s and Isaac is 10 years old.

With humility do I ask for prayers that somehow God may be glorified by their suffering even if we do not fully understand how that may be. I wish for the faithfull guidence my brother was giving to his son before the accident to not be lost, and strength for both his wife and son to persevere in the care for my brother as well as themselves.

Thank you.

 

[pyropam]

O Jesus, I humbly pray for your faithful… Restore Joe, his wife Renee, and his son to a normal family life. Bring Them peace and help them to have strength through all that they suffer through each day. Father, we know you are the divine healer and physician of all things that ail us. We pray that your will be done… In Jesus name I pray… AMEN

 

[Elizabeth_T]

You are a good and loving sibling to your brother and his family. I will keep you all in my evening prayers.

Also, do not lose hope. This may be something of a cliche but the saying that when the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window is quite true.

God Bless,

Elizabeth

 

[BarbaraTherese]

With humility do I ask for prayers that somehow God may be glorified by their suffering even if we do not fully understand how that may be. I wish for the faithfull guidence my brother was giving to his son before the accident to not be lost, and strength for both his wife and son to persevere in the care for my brother as well as themselves.

Will keep your hopes in prayer daily…God bless you - Barb

 

[Alma]

I am praying for them.
May the love they once shared keep them strong and united.
I commend them to the loving care of the Holy Family.

 

[Milliardo]

Place Joe and his family in Your loving care, knowing that You will see them through these times and will always be there to comfort them, Lord.

 

[Sapphire]

Praying for your brother and his family…

 

[Stitch]

Praying for your brother and his family.