We had wonderfully good progress with Todd today, he is now out of sedation, and has been for the whole day (since 10 am) with no MAJOR fever incidents, now it is mostly low grade. The bacteria is responsive to the antibiotics ( a concern in the states but less common here). We are hopeful through the current bout of antibiotics the bacteria will be contained. He is also off the morphine and we are beginning to get the responses we are longing for. He is blinking in answer to questions, and we are now getting a movement in the hand ( earlier in the day this was not clearly voluntary). His eye movement is responding to cues but he is not tracking. This now is the time where we can begin to ascertain the extend of his brain injury. Still working on the apartment thing and while I would like nothing more to be home Todd’s father is confident that we are receiving the best possible care here. Tommorrow is most likely to include the tracheostoma as they say in dutch, tube out of mouth to be more straightforward….

Note to you all from Yuksel and Jockel (we call him Zander) from Berlin who have been monitering Todd’s progress over the last couple days …

hello all of you,
we are here since saturday, and guess have been lucky to see how much difference one can see between yesterday and today, and between this morning and this afternoon.. let`s start with the difference between the two days.. yesterday, when we arrived we saw Todd in much better shape than we were expecting. the fever did not raise too much throughout the day, and the doctors knew, which antibiotic the bacteria they did discover could respond to.. soo that was already one major step. and this morning(sunday), they had already taken the sedatives out… and when the nurse asked him midday if he hears her voice-blink if you do- todd was blinking, so that was great.. and then around noon time, they also stopped the morphine.. and then in the evening, when i asked him to move his hand if he understands, he did.. and he did that for three times.. but we did not get a hand movement when I asked if he knew who we were.. (alex at that moment was not there, and now i can not be too sure if i asked it in a too complicated way..) .. but anyway, i have never been so happy at the movement of a few fingers in my whole life. so that was also great. we are looking forward to better improvement tomorrow.
other than that, we are so glad that we came here. on the way to come, we thought we would have a clearer idea of his situation, how to cope, what to think.. truth is, it is not like that.. tomorrow we will be going back with more questions in our minds, curious about more things than we were from a distance..
but we go back with great hope, because we were lucky to see the improvement he makes in a day.. and we are so proud of Alex.. she is so `tapfer` as they say in german, which is not just brave, but more.. and is coping incredibly with everyting and anything… and i stop here, because she is complaining that her name is coming up too much!!! (outrage) but we say ok! anyway, we have witnessed that our company has been visibly helpfull, and that is great!
yuksel, and now its Jockel`s (Zander) turn

Yes, so for the last 2 days Alex, Yuksel, me and Todd’s dad, who we had the pleasure to meet, even if we wished it would be on a different occasion, have been around Todd’s bed. If one is not downstairs at the cafeteria fetching lunch, we hold Todd’s hands, stroke his arms, massage his feet or wipe sweat of his forehead, meaning he has one of us at each of his extremities, and we sometimes are afraid, if our treatment might too much hinder him to sleep for recreation. Sometimes we have also the impression, that Todd is very bored to be asleep too much, but in the moment all is more our interpretation, instead of information from Todd. No morfine or sedative anymore, but also no sudden awakening. But definitly noticable is some small progress. We were really surprised, how much better Todd’s appearance was this mornig, compare to last night and we hope to experience the same tomorrow morning. When we left tonight, Todd seemed to be tired after a long day. Even when the time in the hospital for us seems to pass very fast, we were tired as well. His tiredness might also have to do with our permanent wish to understand, how he feels, and every question we ask, and on which we hope, to get the (for us) most simple answer, might be a difficult exam task for Todd. So most of the time at Todd’s bed, we dont bother him too much with our questions, but simply try to comfort him and tell him from the things we recently experienced or read in your e-mails. So not too much real knowledge on our side, but a lot of hope and optimism to be shared with you … JZ

On behalf of his father and Renate:
We love our Todd & send our best to all of you.

Missing you all.
Alexandra, Dick, Renate, Yuksel & Zander