RE:Hey big cuz! (John)
(Date Posted:01/15/2008 10:11 PM)
I told mom what happened to her on Monday when I was there visiting. She seemed pretty lucent at the time, so I laid it all out for her. The nurses have also been telling her what is going on from day to day, but we can't really be sure if she understands us that much or not. Time will tell. The drain is doing good. Bob says the coloring was even lighter today. Still some red, but not as much. As time goes on, they will start to let her regulate her own intercranial pressure (icp), and once they get her up to 25 or so (she's at 10 now), they will close off the drain to see if she can maintain healthy pressure. If for some reason she can't, then they may install a shunt, which is basically what she has now, except routed internally and draining into her stomach. Lots of people out there are walking around right now with shunts. It's fairly common with brain injury patients. As far as I know, they are not planning on doing any more CT angiograms unless something comes up where they feel they need to. They have been doing CAT scans, the last one they told me about was last Thursday. Basically, all they are checking for with the CAT scans is how well the blood is clearing, if there is any new bleeding, and how her brain swelling is coming down. So far, everything has been as good as can be expected.
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