Help Christian after Critical Accident

On Thursday July 25, 2019 Christian Aasen, 23, was driving his motorcycle and was hit head on at an intersection by a driver making a left turn. Upon collision Christian, who was avid at wearing protective motorcycle gear, lost his helmet and shoes before impacting the ground. He was intubated on the scene and immediately transported to St. Joseph's Medical Center and has been in their Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit since.

Refer news link:
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article233139456.html

THE INJURIES:
Christian was initially brought in with severe head injuries; Subdural Hematoma and Subarachnoid Hematoma; Contusions to the entire Frontal Lobe, DAI- Diffuse Axonal Injury, and Cerebral Edema. He also came in with facial/skull fractures and a broken toe. We still cannot believe that was the only bone he broke! The most severe and life-threatening injuries to the brain were the two brain bleeds; SDH and SAH; and the Cerebral Edema. In short, these injuries caused massive swelling. To manage this swelling the neurosurgeon placed a drain and monitor in his brain. This allowed the brain space to swell. Because of how severe his brain injuries were, they had Christian in a medically induced coma for about 17 days. After his brain had some time to heal, and before they started to bring him out of the coma, they removed the breathing tube that was inserted in through his mouth; which is extremely painful and uncomfortable, and replaced it with a Trachea breathing tube. It was such a blessing for him to get this trach, because after about a week of having it, he was not quite ready for them to take it out, but he was ready to not need help breathing at all times. So they were able to put a little button/plug in the hole which allowed him to work on finding his voice again! They also inserted a feeding tube prior to him waking up. The other non life-threatening brain injury, the DAI, is going to be the injury he will be dealing with long-term. The DAI, is the brain cells, the one's that communicate with each other to tell our mind and body what to do, detaching. This means, that Christian will have to re-form all new connections, to replace the ones he once had. He still knows how to do everything he did prior to the accident, he just needs time and therapy to get his body to do what the brain is telling it.

For all the day to day updates from his entire stay in the ICU please visit our page on the caring bridge website:

A CaringBridge Site was created for Christian. It‘s a caring social network to help people stay connected with family and friends during a health event.
Visit Christian's Site: https://caringbridge.org/visit/christianaasen
Site Name: christianaasen

CURRENT STATE:

A majority of the injury to the brain affected his frontal lobe which controls key functions like speech, motor skills, memories, empathy, and personality. Christian is the light of every family gathering and has the kind of humor that leaves your belly aching from laughing so hard. He truly has a heart of gold and would do anything for the people he loves. When he was stable enough for the doctors to wake him up, we immidiately new that our sweet, funny, and loving Christian was right there! The joy we felt was indescribable. Now, on day 30 in the ICU, Christian is speaking full sentences, can stand up for a brief second, take a couple steps with help and has slowly began to eat and drink orally. He still has his trach and feeding tube, however he is still ready to be transferred to an impatient facility where they will work on getting him fully recovered. This is expected to be a 3 to 4 week very intensive process. This facility will also be working with our family to teach us how to best care for Christian when he comes home. After he is able to learn how to do basic tasks like brush his teeth, eat, go to the bathroom, etc; he will be able to come home and will continue his PT at an outpatient facility and we will be working with him everyday as well.The full PT recovery process is expected to be about 6 months to a year. By the way, we don’t ever take these timelines too seriously, because so far, Christian has shattered every single timeline they have given us! So we will see!

We are seeking support for Christian to help him through this long and difficult road to recovery and transition him into a normal lifestyle as seamlessly as possible. No donation is too small! We firmly believe all the love, prayers, and positive energy is what got Christian through this alive, and we cannot express how blessed we feel to have such amazing friends and family.