Baby steps
Hi friends,
First of all, thank you again for your continued support. It means so much to us all, and never doubt that all your efforts and prayers and love are doing wonders for both my mom and myself. Please keep it up!
Just to summarize what happened for anyone visiting this site who doesn't know, here's a recap: Beverly was walking along on a beautiful Chicago afternoon, and as she was crossing the street, she was struck by a city bus and thrown. She received no injuries to her trunk or limbs, but did suffer severe head injuries. Her brain is very swollen and bruised, and medications were initially ineffective at reducing the swelling. Her neurosurgeon and trauma doctor made the decision to perform surgery to remove a portion of her skull to relieve the pressure. The piece of bone they removed is being kept safe inside her abdomen, to be reattached a few months from now when the swelling is gone and it is safe. The surgery was successful at getting the level of pressure out of the danger zone, but there is still significant swelling. The doctors wanted to keep her heavily sedated for a few days to let her brain heal and try to get the swelling and pressure down. Her vital signs have all been stable, blood pressure and heart rate good. The oxygenation level to her brain tissue has consistently been at a good level as well, which is very good. She's had a few CT scans to look at her brain, and initially there were some small bleeds, but the neurosurgeon said they were all superficial, and they have since stopped bleeding. She had two CT scans in a row that were essentially unchanged from one another, and so they told us they weren't in a rush to do another one as that indicated there weren't any rapid changes happening.
There is a monitor inside her brain that measures the amount of pressure inside, and the numbers have steadily decreased over the past couple of days and have stayed very stable. They leave the tube inside open to drainage to keep the pressure down, and periodically clamp the drain to do spot checks to check the pressure. At first, the clamped pressures were still a bit high, but yesterday, they were in a relatively normal range! Her trauma doctor, who is very straightforward, blunt and does not say things she doesn't mean, has told us she is surprised at how well mom is doing at this point - they had said the first 5-7 days after the accident had the potential to show worsening swelling before it got better, but so far (keep your fingers crossed!) this has not been the case! We only hope and pray that she will continue on this path.
On Monday, the doctors decided to take her off the sedation medication for awhile to see what she did. At first, there wasn't much happening. But my aunt Betty and I were in the room with her, rubbing her legs and holding her hands and talking to her. As more time elapsed from when they turned off the sedation, her sedation monitor began to spike more and more. She began to move her left hand a bit, and so we really started talking to her a lot, and we got her to open her eyes! They weren't open very much, but it was a start. Her blood pressure did go up some while she was getting excited, so they decided it was best to put her back on some sedation (less than before) to let her relax some more. It's going to take many reminders that all we can possibly hope for at this point are baby steps.
Yesterday, they had to put a new arterial line in her foot, and they tell me while they were doing that, she was not cooperating much with them because she was moving her feet and legs so much! To me, this is huge and I can't help but be excited because up until now, she hadn't been doing much of anything with her lower extremities. She was withdrawing to the pain (poor little feet!!) so much they had to give her some more sedation and then also some medication to paralyze her so she'd stay still! She was getting mad! That's the mom I know and love, and I just can't help but think that deep inside, she's trying to come back to us. She was even breathing over the ventilator, taking some of her own breaths during this whole process! Baby steps.
So, the plan of action now is that because her ICPs (intracranial pressures) have been so stable, they were going to try and raise up the level of the drain a little bit to see if she tolerated that okay. Also, in order to prevent a pneumonia infection, they are going to place a tracheostomy instead of the ET tube to help her breath, and also put a PEG tube (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) to feed her. This way, all the tubes she has going into her mouth will be out, and it'll be much more comfortable for her. Another goal is to stabilize her ICPs so much that they can take out the monitor in her brain, and then perform an MRI to make sure there is no soft tissue damage in her neck (they can't do an MRI with the monitor in), and then take off that uncomfortable-looking cervical collar they have on her poor neck. But we don't know how long that might take yet, so we must be patient.
She has a very punk hairdo (half hair, half shaved), and we tell her she's rockin' the look everyday. Her face swelled up quite a bit after the surgery, but it has gotten much better since then. She is still swollen, especially in her arms and fingers, but she looks beautiful nonetheless. I just can't wait to be able to talk to her again, I miss her so much.
Okay, I'll hopefully update this again tomorrow if there is anything new. I can't thank everyone enough for all your love and support.
Love,
Amanda
First of all, thank you again for your continued support. It means so much to us all, and never doubt that all your efforts and prayers and love are doing wonders for both my mom and myself. Please keep it up!
Just to summarize what happened for anyone visiting this site who doesn't know, here's a recap: Beverly was walking along on a beautiful Chicago afternoon, and as she was crossing the street, she was struck by a city bus and thrown. She received no injuries to her trunk or limbs, but did suffer severe head injuries. Her brain is very swollen and bruised, and medications were initially ineffective at reducing the swelling. Her neurosurgeon and trauma doctor made the decision to perform surgery to remove a portion of her skull to relieve the pressure. The piece of bone they removed is being kept safe inside her abdomen, to be reattached a few months from now when the swelling is gone and it is safe. The surgery was successful at getting the level of pressure out of the danger zone, but there is still significant swelling. The doctors wanted to keep her heavily sedated for a few days to let her brain heal and try to get the swelling and pressure down. Her vital signs have all been stable, blood pressure and heart rate good. The oxygenation level to her brain tissue has consistently been at a good level as well, which is very good. She's had a few CT scans to look at her brain, and initially there were some small bleeds, but the neurosurgeon said they were all superficial, and they have since stopped bleeding. She had two CT scans in a row that were essentially unchanged from one another, and so they told us they weren't in a rush to do another one as that indicated there weren't any rapid changes happening.
There is a monitor inside her brain that measures the amount of pressure inside, and the numbers have steadily decreased over the past couple of days and have stayed very stable. They leave the tube inside open to drainage to keep the pressure down, and periodically clamp the drain to do spot checks to check the pressure. At first, the clamped pressures were still a bit high, but yesterday, they were in a relatively normal range! Her trauma doctor, who is very straightforward, blunt and does not say things she doesn't mean, has told us she is surprised at how well mom is doing at this point - they had said the first 5-7 days after the accident had the potential to show worsening swelling before it got better, but so far (keep your fingers crossed!) this has not been the case! We only hope and pray that she will continue on this path.
On Monday, the doctors decided to take her off the sedation medication for awhile to see what she did. At first, there wasn't much happening. But my aunt Betty and I were in the room with her, rubbing her legs and holding her hands and talking to her. As more time elapsed from when they turned off the sedation, her sedation monitor began to spike more and more. She began to move her left hand a bit, and so we really started talking to her a lot, and we got her to open her eyes! They weren't open very much, but it was a start. Her blood pressure did go up some while she was getting excited, so they decided it was best to put her back on some sedation (less than before) to let her relax some more. It's going to take many reminders that all we can possibly hope for at this point are baby steps.
Yesterday, they had to put a new arterial line in her foot, and they tell me while they were doing that, she was not cooperating much with them because she was moving her feet and legs so much! To me, this is huge and I can't help but be excited because up until now, she hadn't been doing much of anything with her lower extremities. She was withdrawing to the pain (poor little feet!!) so much they had to give her some more sedation and then also some medication to paralyze her so she'd stay still! She was getting mad! That's the mom I know and love, and I just can't help but think that deep inside, she's trying to come back to us. She was even breathing over the ventilator, taking some of her own breaths during this whole process! Baby steps.
So, the plan of action now is that because her ICPs (intracranial pressures) have been so stable, they were going to try and raise up the level of the drain a little bit to see if she tolerated that okay. Also, in order to prevent a pneumonia infection, they are going to place a tracheostomy instead of the ET tube to help her breath, and also put a PEG tube (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) to feed her. This way, all the tubes she has going into her mouth will be out, and it'll be much more comfortable for her. Another goal is to stabilize her ICPs so much that they can take out the monitor in her brain, and then perform an MRI to make sure there is no soft tissue damage in her neck (they can't do an MRI with the monitor in), and then take off that uncomfortable-looking cervical collar they have on her poor neck. But we don't know how long that might take yet, so we must be patient.
She has a very punk hairdo (half hair, half shaved), and we tell her she's rockin' the look everyday. Her face swelled up quite a bit after the surgery, but it has gotten much better since then. She is still swollen, especially in her arms and fingers, but she looks beautiful nonetheless. I just can't wait to be able to talk to her again, I miss her so much.
Okay, I'll hopefully update this again tomorrow if there is anything new. I can't thank everyone enough for all your love and support.
Love,
Amanda
Comments
This is Phil from Saratoga. How are you?? This is way too weird. And to hear her referred to as "Ms. Longo." I've sent Amanda's email to several of our friends from high school, who send their throughts from around the country. I think thoughts from Seattle are pretty well covered.
This blog is a wonderful idea. I tried not to call you so much because I knew you'd be overwhelmed with phone calls. I am so glad to hear that Bev is doing much better. She is a fighter, she's stubborn, and she is very smart. I know she is telling the doctors what they should be doing to heal her in her mind. She always quizzes me on medical jargon and she'd be surprised that I can answer the questions even though I have no medical training. (Forensic Files is my favorite show). Bev will come out a winner. She is being supported by so many prayers and well wishes. I can't wait to talk to her again. Stay strong Amanda and family. God hears our prayers and is answering them.
Peace and Blessings,
Beryl