accidental methadone overdose and brain damage

Hi all. One of my best friends has been taking heavy painkillers to manage pain due to disk surgery and partial replacement. They have been switching between things as heavy as morphine and methadone.
They found her thanksgiving day not breathing with foam coming out of her mouth and nose. She was in respiratory arrest and flown to a better hospital in the neighboring state. They are still doing tests to check for blood clots or anything like that, but so far they think it was an accidental overdose on methadone. The MRI's and CT scans have shown 6 areas of brain damage (3 on each side) one each in the frontal, middle, and rear...
She has since awoken from the "coma" and been removed off the ventilator (all in about 4 days). She remembers her family and friends but she has significant involuntary movements of her arms. She is hugging her children so hard that it hurts them and if you grab her hand she will twist until you are screaming for mercy. She can not wiggle any of her toes, but does show voluntary movement in her left leg. MY BIGGEST CONCERN is that she is awake and her pupils are still very very large. She does look at you when you talk to her but her pupils are not responding to light. Am I right in being worried about this? Anybody have anything to offer? I've never dealt with brain trauma before and trying to figure out what to expect with my friend. Will she return to normal??

[babyseeker]

really? Nothing??

[Dr Sharma]

Hi there.  Methadone overdose must have caused these symptoms in your friend. In methadone poisoning one is comatose, pin point pupils, muscle twitches or spasticity along with slow shallow breathing. Your friend would have received immediate supportive care to secure airway, breathing and circulation, also the antidote, naloxone, to undo the effects of the opioid, the dilated unreactive pupils are due to naloxone effect. The spasticity may be because of methadone in the body. Since she is conscious, alert and responsive, breathing spontaneously , she should get better in a couple of days, proided her other organ functions has not been jeopardized.
Take care.

[babyseeker]

thank you for your response. My friend has now been moved to a physical therapy treatment center. She is very nauseaus upon rising at all and starts gagging like she will throw up. She has no control over her bladder/bowels.. she does talk to us but is very one track minded now... she can not talk and watch tv at the same time and sometimes we have to ask her the same question several times before getting a reaction. She has more control over her arms now... She has made leaps of recovery but I hope for her children's sake she regains more of who she was. She currently thinks we are in Feb of 2007 but has shown some promise as far as some of her memories in the last few years....
again, thank you for your response and I sincerely hope you're right and that she will make an almost full recovery.