It may not look like much, but this represents so much progress for this little guy. When I first took in this eastern box turtle patient, back in July, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive the week, nevermind recover. He had been hit by a car right on the side of his head. His shell was undamaged, but his beak was cracked, his eye was clearly done for, he had such brain damage that he couldn’t hold his head up, he barely was able to move, and on top of all that, he had aspiration pneumonia. A well-intentioned but untrained finder who kept him for several days before calling for help tried to feed him a liquid formula for other animal species, which slid down into his lungs, making him deathly ill on top of his head trauma.
For several weeks, in addition to dosing him with medication and keeping him hydrated (which was difficult because he didn’t really swallow well at first), I used a syringe and a baby nose bulb to suck all sorts of gunk out of his respiratory system through his nostrils, multiple times a day, just to give him the ability to breathe. After the infection was gone, he wouldn’t eat for months. Didn’t even try to eat on his own no matter what I put in there to tempt him with. He could lift his head a little and sometimes was in a different spot than where you left him, but most of the time you would walk by his tank and think he was dead, with his limbs splayed out and his head on the floor. I was nearly ready to say goodbye to him, but I held out hope just a little longer, and then one day he attacked a worm in his enclosure.
At first I was so excited because this was a huge milestone. Even if he missed 9/10 times, him trying to eat was progress. However, after that day, he tried to eat a few more times and then just stopped. Eventually I resorted to force-feeding him because he was losing weight, and once the food was in his mouth, he was able to manipulate his jaw and tongue to swallow solids, but he showed no interest in trying to get the food into his mouth himself. He was at this point drinking on his own, but I was worried that he had plateaued and wasn’t going to improve any more. A turtle that can’t eat can’t survive. Again, I was worried I would eventually have to put him down.
Over the past few weeks, he’s shown not only marked improvement in his ability to eat, but consistency in wanting to eat, even enthusiasm for certain foods. His aim is still not 100% (give him a break, he’s still a brain-damaged cyclops), but he can actually take bites. He’s still not too great if his food is on the ground or not elevated/protruding in some way, so he regularly needs to be fed by hand. However, I can trust him not to drown in his own water dish, which he can get in and out of without help now if he wants to soak, and he regularly looks like he’s actually alive.
(Ignore the dog playing with a squeaky toy in the background of the above video.)
People who don’t work with turtles closely (or even others who do) may call me crazy, but I could tell when there was something going on in his head and when there wasn’t. There was a look in his one good eye, call it a light or a spark or whatever you want, an alertness that came and went. Sometimes, he was just a turtle-shaped organism continuing to exist through automatic processes and force of habit. But much more frequently now, he actually seems like a turtle. He’s a living, breathing, thinking being.
Most rehabbers don’t name their patients, and I understand why it’s not a good idea to anthropomorphize them nor to get too attached to something that’s going to leave you eventually one way or another. However, I like naming my patients (once they survive three days because that’s usually when they succumb if they’re going to). I feel like it helps them stand out when I tell people about them and it makes me more enthusiastic about cleaning up whatever annoying mess they’ve left me that day and put up with their shenanigans. Because every day felt like that one would be his last, like he was always hanging on by just a thread, I named him Fragile Frankie. Every morning I would get up and check on him and it was a small miracle he was still breathing. Fragile Frankie’s not out of the woods yet (so to speak), and I still have no idea if he’s ever going to be released back into them, but I can finally feel cautiously optimistic about his actual chances at recovery.
Most of my other patients this year have been fairly textbook recover/die scenarios. My first real in-between patient has taught me the value of patience, as turtles do everything in their own time.
Turtle Haven 
As you said, he’s a living, breathing, thinking being. He is lucky to have you.
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