1 (UPBEAT MUSIC) Captions by Amenda Quang Edited by Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 (UNSETTLING MUSIC) So what happened after you had your heart attack? And what was it like when you woke up, do you remember that? (POIGNANT PIANO MUSIC) Why didn't you wake me up? Why didn't I wake you up? Cos you weren't ready to wake up. But I didn't feel it. No, you didn't feel it. I had died. Yes. One doctor said, you know, if he was to make the call that day, that he would say it was a... unsurvivable brain injury. (SNORING) (SNORES) Let's just hope you... (SNORES) ...get back to how you were before, eh? (SNORES) Going to school, excelling in school,... (SNORES) We've, yeah, had` always had a close connection... (SNORES) ...because he sort of looked up to me, being the older brother, and sort of as a` in a father-figure kinda way. (SNORES) Get your rest. (WHEEZES) What are you doing? Do you want to move over? I'm trying to go to sleep. (LAUGHS) You thought you were asleep for only two days, but Mum told you you were asleep for two weeks. Was I? Yeah. That's long as. (LAUGHS) Jarrod has a` a hypoxic brain injury. The part of the brain that's been affected is the occipital lobe, which is at the back of the brain. Those are the areas of the brain that are particularly involved with vision and the visual association areas, so not only is it the areas where you see, but it's also where you make sense of what you see. Get some breakfast, Jarrod. He's had trouble, for instance, with identifying people's faces, and that's a particular type of syndrome that can occur in those circumstances. He has to start all over again, if you` if you will. Porridge? Porridge. Growing up, he was quite the character, just always positive about where he is, what he's doing. Jarrod is laid-back, but you can also sense that he is motivated to` wanting to do something with his life. Through his years, through high school and intermediate, he has picked up the cheekiness and the` the humour. Jarrod. (WHEEZES) Morning. Morning. So we've been here at ABI for about a week and a half. What's that on your arm? Oh, yeah, my arm. Things seem to be going very, very well in terms of Jarrod becoming more mobile. (WHEEZES) Until this week is over. Yeah. I think what we'll do a bit more today is actually look at how long you can stand for and just try to get you kinda moving on to both sides and just feeling that weight through each side. Standing for the first time is` is a big thing, and` and, you know, when you've been lying in bed and things, your muscles get a bit deconditioned and just something like standing can put` be a lot more difficult. Can you lift your arms for me? Good job. That's all good. Yup. Well done. Stand there for... How are you feeling? Do you wanna sit down? Feel it in my calf. OK, we'll have a sit-down. So putting your arms here. Good job. Cool. We might go outside, and we're gonna try to do some steps. The` The gutter frame is just` You put your arms into it. Um, we'll` we'll get you up on it, and we'll give you an idea of how it works. Push up to stand, mate. Yup, good. Now I want you to reach out. Stepping that left foot. Yep, and right foot. You able to get longer steps, Jarrod? Pardon? A little bit longer steps. Yeah. Sit down. (POIGNANT MUSIC) (RINGING TONE ON SPEAKER) (RINGING TONE CONTINUES) WOMAN ON SPEAKER PHONE: Hello? Mum. Hi, how are you? I'm good. I took my first steps today. Cool. Yeah. You guys coming to see us tomorrow? Yup. WHISPERS: Yes. Mum finds it quite hard being so far away from where we live. She just started back at work this week. ...for ages. But she told me it's best for Jarrod that I'm here with him, that kind of hard love that I bring. (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) Wow. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Yup. OK. Let's go. And now when you stand up, you're gonna push up from the bed, OK? So where's my wheelchair? Not here! Why not? Cos you don't need it. Get that out of the way and reach forward to the sink. Reach forward for the sink. Bit further back. Can you feel the basin there? Cool. And where's your toothbrush? It's on the other side of the tap. Yes, well done. What colour is it? (MURMURS, WHEEZES) Can you hold it up a bit into the light? Blue. Yes, that's right. So that's the actual tap, but the handle bit is just above it. That's it, and you have to lift it up. (WATER RUNS) There you go. Well done. He seems to... be accepting a lot of what's going on. He does get a bit stubborn at times, but, you know, that's how... 15-year-olds are, I guess. Where is`? Where is Jay? You see Jay? Oh, right there. Yeah. Good job. I'm just gonna get you to stand up, OK? Standing up. Good, good. There's a tissue box in front of you, and I want you to try bend down and pick it up. Good. Careful when you're coming back, eh? It's just stabilizing` Keeping your weight a little bit forward. So doing a full circle. OK? Yup. Ready, set, go. Oh! Two, three. Good. So we're gonna take a few steps back, OK? What were we remembering to do? And put my weight... forward a bit. Yup. Perfect. Good. Good job. We'll probably get you to do some stuff over the weekend. Um, and we might actually get you involved. So we're thinking about getting him, um, to come up to the gym, if possible, and some of those sit-to-stands. So we'll go into the... (CALM MUSIC) Jarrod over the last couple of days has made some really good improvements. He's no longer needing the wheelchair to come up to the gym. He's now able to walk outside by himself and with Jason or one of the staff members helping him out a little bit, just guiding him. It's mainly to do with his vision, so a lot of what we're doing` we're doing today is we're scanning for things and, um, ob` we've got an obstacle course set up. All right. I've got some cones each side, and I want you to go along, and I want you to pick up those cones, all right? Holy heck. (CHUCKLES) Good job. Keep coming. Try to bend down and find it. So it's here. (KNOCKS) Good. Keep going. All right, we might just have a little sit-down. Yeah, your heart rate just started getting up a little bit. We're not allowed to get past 150, yeah? (WHEEZES) The main risk of Jarrod's heart rate not being able to reach 150, they don't want him to be at risk of maybe having another incident. Knock-knock. (KNOCKING) Hello, Jarrod. (LAUGHS) I might` Actually, we're probably gonna do some breathing exercises right now so` Yeah. Your vocal chords, normally when we breathe, are open, but sometimes when you're breathing, they get too close together. And that's when we hear those sounds like (WHEEZES). Right? That's what we want to avoid, right? So you can control it. You can kinda feel how it feels in your throat when you (WHEEZES). All of this ` I'm just gonna touch your neck real quick ` this gets a bit tense, right? And when we're breathing, right, when we're concentrating on our belly, you're like a balloon that's inflating... and then deflating. When you breathe out, I want you to make a 'sss' sound. Cool. Sss. (BOTH LAUGH) Good. And then another cool effect of this kinda breathing is that it's lowering your heart rate quite a bit, which is another goal of ours. Wow. So I think we're gonna do some running. We'll do some upper limb stuff as well. Running inside the... on the treadmill? Nah, probably not on the treadmill. Try running. So we're just gonna do two lengths, OK? And we'll sit down. There and back. There and back. Yup. OK. Ready? OK, go. Try` Try going and landing on your toes, OK? That's what I want you to do, all right? Keep going. On your toes. Good. What are you`? So what are you gonna do this time? Make lots and lots of noise. Yup. And to do that, you need to get what with your knees? What do you need to do? High. Higher knees, cool. Ready, three, two, one, go! It's amazing how fast he's progressed. From what we were told, he was motivated to prove the doctors wrong, but show them that he is strong. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) So, Jarrod, you're doing really well, and the next step is going to be looking at going home for the weekends. The main thing we want to highlight is that heart rate. When you're going home, um, you just have to be very diligent with that and those oxygen saturations. The same sort of stuff. We've got you those precautions. I think that probably the three main things that we're working on when you do go out are getting you to look at your watch yourself and check when you need to, uh, take a bit of a rest, and your eyesight, so scanning around and looking for things, and when we're inside, scanning around to find where the cookies are, for example. So getting used to lots of work with your eyes. Good luck, little guy. Enjoy. I'll see you when you're better, eh. Do you wanna have a photo? Hongi. Hongi, eh. No. (LAUGHS) I'll headbutt you, eh. (BLOWS RASPBERRY) (LAUGHS) So what did you think about the meeting? Um, I can go home. Yes. And every day is getting better. Yeah. Yeah? It will be good to have you at home for a couple of days. It will be a little bit like things are normal. You know it's hard for me not being here all the time, don't you? And I would like to be here all the time. And I miss you. I miss you. And I miss Jason. There they are, boy. It's just gonna be good to be home. We are planning tonight to go to... the rec centre where the incident happened. Just to show them how well we're doing, and tomorrow, we're planning to have a barbecue, just for everybody who helped support. (HOPEFUL MUSIC) He will have to take regular breaks and time out away from other people, while we're at home, just to get his heart rate back to` to normal, I guess. I'll walk past you. (KNOCKS ON DOOR) (INDISTINCT CHATTER, LAUGHTER) Oh, come here. Where`? Where else would I be? (LAUGHS) At work. At work? No. Since he's been gone, there's been something missing, and, of course, yeah, it's` it's him and Jason, so having him here it's` it's like a bit of normality, yeah. The kids are loving it. I'm loving it. It makes me feel a lot better. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, Jarrod does get a bit annoying, when people ask about his breathing. More with new people that haven't really cared for him. When the ambulance first arrived and they incubated him, they` they must have cut him or something. Over time, that just healed up and made his airways a bit tighter, which wasn't allow his vocal chords to open. It's a relief that we finally know... why he was making those kind of sounds that he was making. Jarrod. (WHEEZES) Breathe. What does it say now? 119. 119. We need him to keep remembering to breathe while he's standing up and moving around. So I think when he concentrates he, um, sort of holds his breath. I didn't even recognise you. You've grown. Hey! Whoa! Look at you. Eh! You're looking good, my friend. So good to see you back. Eh, so good to see you. I hear you've been getting cheeky. Yeah. Yeah? How are you feeling? I'm all right. Yeah? So real fast ` if you were here on that Friday night, and you were part` here on that Friday night, can you just come to the stage area? Nice, all right. So let's grab a seat down here, guys, and then we'll get into it. You had played a game already and everyone` uh, we had that last run, which is the run where the college boys come in. The thing was that you were on the court for quite a while, yup, and we played two` two halves, and when we finished the game, um, you` you walked over to the side, and when you sat down on the chair, um, you collapsed and fell on to the floor. And then Lance called out, 'Willie, there's something wrong!' What happened was that the staff and Lance tried to wake you up, they tried to say, 'Hey, Jarrod. Hey, Jarrod.' When that happened, I went and called for the ambulance to come. The staff called the ambulance, and then straight away... (WEEPS) All good, boy. You tell us when to stop. He's OK. (WEEPS) Lance and the staff member here at 10 started to do CPR on you, to help you through that. The ambulance came, and then the ambulance took over. And, uh, I'm just thinking, with the boys who were sitting here, they were quite shocked about what happened. And I'm just gonna ask them if they wanna share about what they saw. I'd just looked up, yeah, but then it was quite a while, you were just lying down, started going pale, and yeah, yeah, I was` I was just praying, eh. Yeah. Yeah, scared. Scared, eh. Had you seen anything like that before? No. No, eh. I've always been close with him. Yeah. It just scared me. Yeah. I was so proud of the guys, cos I said, 'You know, that's what Papakura is about. 'You know, that's who our people are, and we shared in this.' So you remember, this is your house too. Uh, Papakura Rec is where we all are, and, uh, we're waiting for you to come back when you're ready. You know, little bit at a time, mate. Don't need to run yet. I'm not gonna take no for an answer, buddy. Yeah. Oi, stop it. (LAUGHS) Good to see you, man. Nice. Thank you. You know I love you, my boy. So good to have you home. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) Thanks from my boys. Jarrod's been` He probably won't want to go back. Yeah, it's good for us, our emotional well-being, just having the support to keep us going while we're out there. We're gonna talk now, so` Our journey that we've been through with Jarrod, through the past couple of months, it's been... it's been very hard. (WHEEZES) We love you all so very much, and, um, thank you for the continuous support you show us every day. Um, yeah. This is just to say thank you to you all. WHISPERS: Say thank you very much. Thank you very much. WHISPERS: I love you all. I love you all. He had heaps of things he wanted to do. He wanted to be a famous basketball player. That was his dream, and I suppose it's just maybe not being able to do them the way he wanted. Who knows? You know, he's proved everyone wrong, so hopefully he'll prove me wrong too. Yeah, just being a part of his progress is really uplifting, not just to me but my whole family and, of course, to himself. We'll be right. We've got` Yeah. Yep. Can you reach it, Curry? (LAUGHTER) Yup, do you wanna pop that off? You can manage it? No, I can't. You can't? You don't want to? No. I can't. OK, you hold on to this one, then. After the weekend at home, quite a lot of stuff has happened. His, um, oxygen levels went too high, so the doctor was a bit concerned about his breathing and things. He ended up having to have another tracheostomy done, which he was a bit concerned about. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) He's supposed to have a nebulizer every couple of hours, just to keep his secretions loose. Just so he can, um, cough them out better so it doesn't get all dry and stuff in there. This is a bit of a setback, having the trache in and things. But I'd say it's a good` a good setback. Yeah, good. (LAUGHS) Yeah, that's good. (MUTTERS) So he can move forward. (SINGING IN DISTANCE) Oh, a good time. You gotta take your T-shirt off first. Why? (HOPEFUL MUSIC) Captions by Amenda Quang. Edited by Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017