Surgery was post-poned till Friday as Dr.Bragg had a case come in Weds night she didnt feel comfortable waiting till Friday to do so we essentially swapped. As far as what she will likely do she mentioned taking out the PS Medical valve in my TPL shunt and putting in a Medtronic Strata programmable valve again so we can re-program the valve and play around w the pressures/resistance as before we had to take everything out. I honestly dont remember if I asked her if we would leave the catheter tip to cont to drain in to the pleural cavity or not but she didnt say otherwise that I can remember from our talking this morning.
She also plans to tap the VP shunt in surgery and if this isnt working said she would swap out the mini-nav (flow control) device (similar to a valve) for a Codman programmable valve for more options in drainage. I am unsure if she would/will leave the second (Miethke) 'shunt assistant' valve in or no.
If nothing else amazingly in this all my GI system has been pretty calm and no constipation which is nice and would be very nice if it cont's! For whatever reason my body just does not seem to like to absorb the CSF well or adapt to that drainage (or something) as ive never understood the connection w constipation (TMI, I know) other than pressure puts un-do well pressure on your brain signals maybe? Doesnt explain why it would be 'calm' now then though..
I, of course missed the 'Pain and Opioids' meeting Tues night in Milw but my Pain Mngmt dr texted me that evening later on to let me know it went well and they missed my voice to balance the 'conversation' . Today she sent me a couple more messages and said they are looking at hosting more of these as the turn-out was over 200 last night (wow!) + successful and alot of interest. On the panel I would have sat on where an Addictionologist (specializing in people w addictions to drugs) as well as a few others including reporterdly another provider who was very fair and balanced in supporting opioid use in a well thought out combination approach. I do hope they plan more of these meetings as I truly want to be involved and bring a legitimate voice to the table that "Yes, these medications actually Do help patients and most of us are following our providers instructions, living a "normal" life (whatever that normal IS!) and not selling our medications, diverting our meds or abusing our meds!
Hoping we are coming to the close end with this series of surgeries, who knows but maybe!?
Thanks for stopping by,
Erica
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