The other day I made the comment on fb "throw up and go" with an additional comment basically making light of being sick that morning and heading out the door after the thought behind it being to just be silly really when I was feeling pretty bad and I guess make soem of my friends laugh who would get it and some did; with one of my friends commenting was I "opening up a new fast food chain with a drive through" - my thought? Could it bve worse than something like McDonald's really? Gross I know. My point behind it really just that despite feeling lousy I didnt want to let life pass me by and I wanted to keep teh plans I had with my Mom, sister, and nephew and after my head and stomach mostly settled it was a really fun day! :)
I am here in-patient tonight at UW and the surgery to place the VP shunt distal end (in stomach) externally was done earlier this afternoon in a relatively short 30min surgery. Anesthesia was a doc ive had before and went well and as well he agreed with my endocrine drs orders for the solu-cortef injection (for cortisol replacement) usually especially with the shorter surgeries the anesthesia docs give me a hard time they dont need to do the replacement dosing and even with my Endocrine drs order they dont seem to get that it IS needed. Non-the-less it was nice that this time it was given as ordered an hour ahead of time and no stress about that. :) The externalized shunt is draining free flow nad has to be set around belly button level but so far hasnt drained much although w the functioning LP shunt I dont actually think we have a set amount to want to drain and we will play around with various settings and adjustments to how it drains.
Dr.Bragg told my Dad the shunt was draining well when they externalized it and when she pulled it out she thought maybe it had been sitting yp against something again as happened in the past due to some resistance as she removed it I think. I will be curious to talk to her more in the morning.
She also said in pre-op she was going to take the opportunity and try several different drainage methods to try and get the best results and listed a few things we may end up doing from placing a different valve, taking out the valve and placing the distal end in pleura as she still feels it may be I am not draining enough bc my body isnt able to absorb the CSF from both shunts draining in to my peritoneum. She talked about one or two other ideas if this doesnt work but those werent things she was eager to try and had more to do with the underlying small/non-expandable ventricles and she nor I are eager to go that route. I asked how long this all might go over as we will have to do another surgery to place teh catheter back in to whayever location we chose and although I dont think we will do it if she deciedd to remove or change the valve that to would have to be done at the same surgery. She really wasnt sure how long I would be in-pt. I guess maybe I will know more atleast by mid-week or maybe even a better idea in the morning? I dont know if I will get out in time for sunday school kids singing on sunday (the song is 'Awesome God'). I hope so. :) Joan (fellow co-teacher) and I where texting tonight and she asked if I minded a visitor so i think she will likely come sometime this week which is nice I really like her upbeat personality and she is funny!
I hope this just works and we get what we need and are able to figure out a good plan. I like Dr.Bragg but hope to stay out of her hair!
Will try to update tomorrow,
Erica
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