<s>[INST] My brother age 74has endured the bentall procedure barely escaping dying......he is in icu now for 3 weeks having suffered various setbacks. His vocal chord was damaged by a trach, he s been lying still the whole time, is just now staring pt, has a nasal feeding tube, can t swallow n is incoherent and not making sense when he tries to speak n we can barely hear him as the vocal chord doesn t close.....what does his future look like. He s a lawyer n walked golf course 2xs a week, one week before he wound up with emergency cardiac surgery.....was opened up 3 times for bleeding n then an aortic stitch had to be repaired...been thru the mill! [/INST] Hello and Welcome to Ask a Doctor service. I have reviewed your query and here is my advice. With the feeding pips speaking not possible patient can not speak well with the feeding pipe, cardiac disease in this age of 74 is risky if patient had gone through some valvular repair procedure or ablation, in such case prognosis could be poor. Hope I have answered your query, Let me know for further help. </s>