gcanyon

"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" Abraham Lincoln.

But how do we know you're not "me from the past" John Green?

There are pills you can take to ease the discomfort of peeing.

Not OP, but I was in a motorcycle accident years back and in a forced coma for about two weeks. Forced coma means they drugged me -- I had broken many ribs and collapsed both lungs, and being still was important, so: coma.

I had very few memories during that time, and most/all of them were from times when I wasn't actually in the coma. They tried taking me off the ventilator once -- they woke me up, I wasn't up to breathing on my own, so I went back on the ventilator and into the coma. For that period, I hallucinated that I was wealthy, with a boat, and the nurses were party girls using my invalid body to transport drugs to and from Catalina Island. Apparently I actually stood up, yelled at everyone, and tried to pull out the catheter. I'm glad I don't remember that part!

I had a few other memories, but my wife says that I wasn't fully under the whole time. She asked them if I was supposed to be in a coma, because I was moving, and the staff were surprised and upped my meds. I ran a severe fever at one point and they had a cold blanket on me, and I was aware of that enough to be miserable. I hate being cold. There were a few other vague memories, but that's about it. None were pleasant, a few were bad.

I wouldn't have said it felt like forty years, but it did seem endless at the time. My wife says my blood pressure went up whenever my relatives crowded into the room, so maybe there were parts I experienced, but didn't remember. The whole experience was definitely not a good time. But it's been years, and now it's just an interesting memory.

Harsh truths coming, and maybe some hope as well, from someone who has dealt with (very roughly) similar circumstances:

1. Don't blame yourself. Do your best, but don't judge yourself for not being perfect. Some day you will look back and think of all the ways you could have done better for him, but don't obsess over it.
2. If you haven't already, try to adjust your expectations. His life is unlikely to ever compare well to "normal"
3. But never doubt that further progress is possible. It can be hard for you to notice because you see him every day and progress can take months or years.
4. If the violence continues, know that there will likely come a day when you have to withdraw. This could just be walking away during a tantrum, knowing that he might hurt himself, but also knowing that if you stay he will hurt you; or it could mean sending him away for your safety or the safety of others. Refer to #1
5. Try to have a life. I remember one meeting we had where a therapist told my wife and me this and we thought she was rude. We had a life! But it was all about the issues we faced. And it was hard adjusting later on to focus on ourselves. And it did pretty much slice ten years out of our lives. So the therapist was right: try to have a life.

Good luck.

Edit to add some extra hope. Consider this guy, who lived a reasonable life and appears to be missing much more of his brain than your son is.