Tuesday Morning Update

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to balance keeping everyone informed but I don't want to fill your inbox with more information than you can handle, so I thought I blog might work nicely.  This way you can check this site if you are wondering how things are going and I don't have to worry about pestering you with too many updates.  If you have questions or if I go too long without updating, please feel free to email or call and we will fill you in. We spend a lot of time just sitting so we don't mind fielding calls and emails.

As you know mom had surgery Friday to remove a tumor (meningioma?) from her brain.  Recovery has been a little slower than we would have liked, but we do see progress each day.  We have two big concerns right now: mobility and vision.

Mobility: She is up and walking with a walker, but the furthest she has made it is from the bed to the door (20 feet?) and back.  By physical therapists' reports it seems as though she has enough strength in her legs to walk, but she gets a little dizzy and swoons which makes her want to sit down.  She is also suffering from a big headache and that prevents her from being maybe as mobile as she is capable of.  However she is medically much recovered from the surgery - she no longer has any tubes hooked up to her, so they are thinking of discharging her from the surgical unit and sending her to St. Luke's in Cedar Rapids for some transitional rehab to get her strength up.  It sounds like a very good facility with a lot of cool rehab stuff (a car to practice getting in and out of, uneven sidewalks and grassy areas to practice walking on, a mock supermarket isle to practice with... and it's well funded by some generous donors, so that's great)  We might go there as soon as today, or it might be later this week, we'll see.

Vision: Mom has some blind spots especially on her right side (surgery was on the left side).  We tried yesterday and today to get to the vision clinic to do some baseline tests to just measure where she is at, but mom's stomach hasn't let her get through the test yet.  It turns out the test is just to get a baseline and it wouldn't lead to any treatment anyway.   It would be great if we can do the test before going to St. Luke's but if it doesn't happen that's OK.  For now time is the best medicine and we are very hopeful that the vision loss is caused by normal swelling and bleeding caused by the surgery and that her vision will come back as that goes down.  However there is a chance that it is permanent and mom will have to make adjustments to  be able to work with just one good eye.

I've been holding off on sharing some of this less good news because I had hoped these problems would just go away on their own.  I still think they might, but it's worth adding a few things to your good thoughts and prayers list to keep those good vibes coming.

I'll keep you posted,
Melissa (Linda's favorite daughter)