Monday Feb. 1, 2010

So, I'm back in Whitehall and just back from the hospital. Andie's up and down and from what today's nurse said these cases tend to be this way. She had a scan today that verified that the surgery was successful in clamping the aneurysm but at the same time they also verified that she's in "mild" vasospasm. This was something that the doctor mentioned earlier that is not uncommon in people of her age and it can cause a stroke. They're doing three things to help push the blood through the brain in the area where the blood vessels are trying to clamp down. They're keeping her blood pressure up ( ironic since uncontrolled blood pressure was the cause of all this in the first place) They're also diluting her blood so it doesn't clot and cause a stroke and keeping her fluids up so the blood can move. She's also got a mild fever and it seems like an infection where the breathing tube is. Keep your germs at home...Since she's still not in a state that she'd want to be seen in I'm still going to say to hold off on visits until later.

I spent some time just sitting there with her reading while holding her hand - they say she can hear us but won't remember this all later on. I get the feeling she's kind of asleep at times then gets active other times so i take my cues from what she's doing and when she moves I talk to her but if she's still I let her rest.
She definitely tapped our hands and grabbed for hands when we held hers and then took it away for a second. Still seems like she's not using her right side the left leg and hand are the ones that move and the nurses indicate that the right foot is forcefully taken away as a reflex response to pain but not so much for the right arm. When she's with it they can ask how it feels - tingle? numb? and go from there.

Since I had my ipod with me I stuck one earphone in her ear while I listened to the other to hear the music she responded to and to be sure it wasn't too loud. There was definitely a response as she raised her eyebrows during high pitched parts of the music -mostly John Denver. I stopped into Friday's and updated the manager there and mentioned the ipod and they remember that Andie really liked 70s music when they played it so I think I need to put more of that on my ipod I'm going to take it in when I go and let her listen more. If nothing else it's stimulation and can't hurt.

Today's nurse was very informative about what might be coming up - maybe a trach tube to help her get more oxygen maybe another procedure to inject the blood vessels directly to stop the constricting which means opening that area up again. We shall see.

We'll be back there in the am and my Dad will call later on tonight to check in with the nurse just before we go to sleep.