I cant believe actually how many people have visitied today and commented how different or how much better I look from just a couple days ago - my neurosurgeon stopped by this morning and was extremely happy and ive had 3 visitors since then 2 of whom saw me earlier this week and all where just amazed the biggest thing they said was I am less drowsy, more like my normal self and brighter eyes - it is funny how often this summer ive gotten the comment from friends, family and providers that they can always tell how im feeling by my eyes - something I guess ive never noticed. The other day I received balloons, a new cat to go with the ones my parents have bought each of the 3 previous surgeries and earrings today, cookies, movies, lots of candy (HA! everyone knows my sweet tooth!!), a yahtzee to go amongst other things from my sister :) as well as flowers, (not allowed in NICU but the nurses and my Nrsgn both pretended as if they arent here since I should be back on neurosurgery floor tomorrow) also received an e-card from a friend I met last spring who works at my Pain Psychol. office and tons of fb messages. Thank you everyone! Im amazed how bad I felt the other day and that I didnt realzie it was the shunt but yet my neurosurgeon knew it was and was her usual brilliant self and had me sent to her hospital and admitted. I'm also amazed how little I remember from sunday, monday and tues - totally crazy the things they keep telling me nothing bad just things I dont remember - I can barely remember who visited.
So the plan is my neurosurgeon did another CT scan today and has surgery scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30PM and will take out the ICP monitor, the EVD (external ventriclular drain - (one sits in the ventricle and one sits outside the ventricle in what is called the parenchymal space) and will tie off the LP shunt (already tied off at the reservoir side which sits closest to my lumbar portion of shunt) at the valve (sits next to the reservoir but on the peritoneal (stomach) side of the shunt and then leave the LP shunt in place in case we ever need to go back to that. She then will place a VP shunt with a medium pressure valve and tunnel this down to the existing peritoneal incision and connect the new tubing to the old catheter after double checking the drainage. (which should be fine since she just fixed this about a month ago). She also will drain off the fluid build-up around the LP shunt - a bubble that has been present since last week - she said some may still be there for a little while but she will remove as much as she can. Sounds like a lot for 1 surgery but in all ties together relatively well and hopefully shouldnt be to bad. I'll update when I can. Pray for anesthesia to go well - the anesthesia folk stopped by tonight and said they had reviewed past records plus planned to stick with the camera to place the breathing tube give the troubles the other anesthesiol. have had with these previ9ous surgeries even with the scope.
Thanks again everyone for the encouragement, words of support, prayers and all around for all the sweet gifts and cards from those close.
Erica
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