Gisborne herald Article - A house built for Jack
6 July 2015
A A GISBORNE family is desperate for help for their “rock” — a husband, father and grandfather — after he suffered a severe brain injury.
Syd Gudgeon had an aortic dissection at Waikato Hospital in May of 2014. The surgery was successful and Mr Gudgeon was moved to the high dependency unit.
There two days later he suffered a respiratory arrest and a cardiac arrest. He was put into an induced coma for three weeks.
When he woke up they discovered he had suffered a hypoxic brain injury. ACC investigations are ongoing as to the cause of his respiratory arrest and response times, and intervention by staff.
The Gudgeon family hopes this might offer an explanation for the severity of his brain injury.
He now has speech impairments, is almost blind, cannot walk unassisted, is in a wheelchair, is reliant on 24-hour care and has bouts of agitation and frustration — common with brain injuries.
However, on top their grief and anger Mr Gudgeon’s family have more important worries — how to deal with the fact that the man they once knew is lost to them and how to bring him home.
While at Waikato Hospital he had no formal neurological assessment and was eventually transferred back to Gisborne Hospital in July.
He was transferred back to Waikato in October.
The Gudgeon family were led to believe that transfer was to start rehabilitation.
But they say he was discharged from Waikato and transferred without their consent to a psycho-geriatric home.
While at the home he suffered “neglect” from healthcare assistants.
His wife of 28 years Suzanne arrived to visit her husband one weekend, to find him lying on the floor in his room.
“He was covered in cuts and severe bruises and swellings, while his caregiver sat on a chair with his feet up. We made an official complaint.
“Trying to cover their backsides, they said Syd was a danger to staff.
“That is not the Syd we know. He is a strong and passionate man with a heart of gold, always looking out for the underdog.”
A complaint is with the health and disability commissioner.
Mr Gudgeon was immediately sent back to Waikato Hospital until they could get him into the Auckland Brain Injury Centre (ABI).
In December, Mr Gudgeon made the move to ABI. There he made “astounding progress” says Mrs Gudgeon.
“They are amazing there. He is a smaller man now but he still has a big aura and personality, and is still quite commanding in that respect.”
Mrs Gudgeon has driven to Auckland to see her husband every weekend for the past year.
“He really progressed at ABI. He is off hard drugs that were used to restrain him. He was doing so well — until suddenly it stopped.
“He is just so lonely and he wants to come home to his family so badly.
“He cannot talk a lot but he can talk enough. He begs to be taken home.”
Mr Gudgeon often tries to leave ABI or get staff to take him to the bus so he can get back to his Patutahi home.
His long-term memory is sometimes intact but his short-term memory is limited. This can often result in frustration and confusion as to why he cannot go home.
“He has been there for six months and has suffered so much over the year. He is scared and says he feels locked out of his brain. He told me it is like a living hell.
“We just want to bring him home. It will not be easy but it is what you do for your loved ones,” says Mrs Gudgeon.
The hallways of the Gudgeon family home are too narrow for a wheelchair and the bedrooms are all upstairs. So it is not suitable for Mr Gudgeon.
There is a sunny deck attached to the house where he used to spend a lot of time relaxing with his family. They want to turn it into a room with a bathroom, complete with enough deck space left for him to sit in the sun with them again.
“It is the only dream he has left — to live out his days at home with his family on his sunny porch, with his dog at his feet.”
Mr Gudgeon was due to be discharged from ABI this week. However, the family has not yet found a suitable replacement facility. ABI understands the difficulty in finding a place for him and while ABI still wants discharge planning to continue, it is flexible on the time frame.
(Gisborne Hospital staff have been working with the family to find the best place for Mr Gudgeon and his family to continue rehabilitation and the best place for healthcare workers to provide 24-hour care — see separate story).
Mr Gudgeon’s son Dean lives in Auckland and visits him during the week until Suzanne can visit at weekends.
Mrs Gudgeon says she focuses on the positives.
“Our friends say when we met it was like a fairytale, so I try to focus on how lucky we are and how lucky we have been. “We used to dance on the deck at night and he was a real hunter-gatherer, and always there for his family and friends.”
Mr Gudgeon managed Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Club from 2000 for two years. He then moved to Bernard Matthews, a meat processing plant, where he was union president for six years. In 2008 he had a work accident and was off work on ACC up until his heart surgery last year.
“He has not had an easy run. He used to say to me, ‘I can feel the universe aligning, everything is going to be just fine’, so I know we can do this.”
The family has set up a “Givealittle” page to raise money for the renovations that can bring their “Daddio, rock and soulmate” home.
Mr Gudgeon’s daughter Kelsey says they are desperate.
“You look at him and what he was and what he is now — it is hard.
“You feel guilty at times because he is here, he is alive and he can comprehend some things. But you also constantly grieve for all the things he has been stripped of.
“It is one of the worst things a family could go through.
“My coping strategy is to just put my frustrations and sadness into trying to make people aware of situations like this and getting him home.”
Kelsey says her father’s words of advice are helping the family in their time of need.
“He used to tell me, ‘you have nothing to fear’.
“Any donations to the Givealittle account are huge. A dollar is huge — anything for him to have peace in his heart and peace of mind.
“Building that room is our main goal so we can catch our breath. It is like we have taken a huge breath and it is just all coming in and we have not had a chance to let it out yet.”
To donate to the Givealittle page The House We Built for Jack, go to /givealittle.co.nz/cause/fightingforsydney.
The fund stands at $1665.
“Bringing him home would mean everything,” says Ms Gudgeon.
