[Melissa here]
Tuesday Cassie and Michael noticed Mom's speech was a little slower than it had been and she was walking a little more carefully. Wednesday Dad noticed the same sorts of things and was especially concerned that she seemed to not have any control of her right hand. So Wednesday night (last night) Dad took Mom to the emergency room at UI.
Doctors did various scans and tests (more about this below) and a great nurse advocated for Mom and got the doctors going and Mom ended up having a surgery in the middle of the night.
The CT scan she got last night showed that there was more fluid in Mom's brain than the last scan Everyone has fluid in the brain but most people can regulate an absorb it, but Mom can't due to the swelling that occurred after the first surgery. They could have given medicine to deal with it but that would have been temporary. The surgery was to put in a shunt which drains the fluids from her brain into her stomach. They had the option of a permanent or temporary shunt but with most temporary shunts they end up replacing them with permanent ones eventually, so they decided that Mom should have a permanent one.
What caused the increase in symptoms and fluid? No one knows for sure and one nurse said it doesn't really matter what caused it we just need to deal with it now that it has happened. One doctor used the word stroke and another said it wasn't a stroke. We don't know.
This morning Mom had equal strength in both arms (no more weakness on the right) and no headache and maybe slightly better vision. She is talking and sounds better than she did pre-surgery (even better than she was after the first surgery) This evening when the surgeon came back to check on her he seemed pleasantly surprised with her strength and recovery. He said the new scans look very good and the surgery went very well.
At this moment she is still in the ICU but she may transfer to a regular room later tonight.
Hopefully I will have more good news about her recovery to share tomorrow.
Thank you, Melissa. Praying for all of you as you continue your wonderful work on Linda's recovery. It sounds like all will go better now since the fluid will drain. Thank God the tumor was benign. Hopefully, all good news from here on. And congratulations to Sophie!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that she had to have another surgery, but so thankful it went well! We'll pray she can go home soon! Hugs!
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