Mom Update, June 14, 2010, Monday

Mom was more alert when dad and I went to see her today. She opened her eyes for us once and responded through facial expression, mouth movement and moving her arm and hand and leg and foot on the right side.

The Social Worker came to talk to us about moving her to a rehab center in about a week or so. Dad, Anthony, Claudia and I are looking at one tomorrow, and one on Wednesday evening. The rehab center will work aggressively on respiratory therapy (getting her off the ventilator/respirator).

The doctor reported the following today:
-They will be putting a shunt in on Wednesday afternoon some time (this will take the place of the drain to rid her of excess fluid in the head---it is internal, can't be seen from the outside, goes from her head to her stomach where the fluid will exit naturally).

-Her infections are all gone!
-She has no more fever
-Her cultures are all negative
-Her tracheal bronchitis has improved a lot
-No more seizure activity
-White blood cell count is low (good thing)
-Bloating in stomach is improved

But the doctor also said that:
-She can either remain as she is now or improve (they don't know if she will or can improve)
-He can't tell us confidently how much recovery there will be because she has not yet become awake
-There is definitely some degree of neurological injury but he doesn't know how much--big sign is the fact that she won't wake up
-They have exhausted all avenues to try to figure out why she hasn't woken up yet (neurologically/medically)
-He has no sense of where her recovery is going yet -- could be too early to tell
-She was making small but steady progress then seemed to dip down in the progress and has plateaued for several days now.
-They are going to try a neuropsychological stimulant tomorrow to help wake her up
-Once she is in rehab, we should see improvement in 1-3 months
-He will still work to get her off the ventilator
-Once she gets to rehab, she will have a new team of doctors

I asked him if the situation was hopeless and he said no. He said we should and could still hope because there still is hope but he wanted us to know that she seems to have reached a plateau (for how long is uncertain)

The surgeon came in and said:
-Can't predict her recovery because it is too soon after the initial event of the aneurysm
-she is currently not in an independent state
-Can't say what degree of recovery can be expected
-Needs to tell us though that statistically the odds are stacked against her that she will make a full recovery
-In 3 months we will know more
-in 6 months the extent of her recovery will be definitive

Please continue to pray, pray, pray....she needs to wake up...