Saturday, December 6, 2008

Big Blue Eyes

Well, we got a better look at those big blue eyes today! She was
awake(ish) and squirmy for us this morning - it was so nice to see!
She's still fairly heavily sedated and resting a lot, but they're
slowly decreasing her morphine so hopefully these waking moments will
come more often.

They removed the pacing wires yesterday (since she hasn't had any
arrythmias out of the OR) and finally got her in for an MRI. I spoke
with the neurologist this morning; he said that there is some damage
on the right side of her brain that will probably affect her motor
skills on the left side of her body. We won't know to what extent for
a few months - it could be minimal or it could mean that she has some
spasming/tightening of her arm or leg. He did mention that there are
some exercises we could do that might help.

He thinks, but can't say for sure, that the initial irritibility of
the brain after the damage occurred is probably what caused the
seizures, in which case they'll likely "melt away" after a few months.

Like most everything, only time will tell.

Next steps are to get her off the ventilator, which probably won't
happen for at least a couple of days, and then figure out what we're
going to do about the pesky valve issue.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to take a page out of her book and
take a little nap ... :)

~ Cristy

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