September 14, 2017 10:00 pm
Today's big news was Josh's surgery. The neurosurgeon put a second shunt in Josh's head. Both of us noticed quickly and independently that the shunts are not evenly aligned -- the first shunt is toward the back on his right side and the second shunt is toward the right on his first side. We were both surprised by that and we sure hope hair will make everything look normal. We are learning that looks come in second to medical requirements in situations like this!
The doctor said everything went well. Josh came out of the anesthesia pretty well and wasn't in much pain. He was alert and interactive all afternoon and evening and in pretty good spirits too. He atea good dinner and enjoyed flipping channels on the TV in the evening. Several people today saw Josh again for the first time in a couple of weeks, including medical personnel and Josh's cousin AJ (by videophone). All were quite surprised and impressed by the improvements he has made since their last interaction.
The new shunt is set to 4 and the old shunt stays at 7. The new shunt can easily be adjusted to drain more quickly if that is necessary, since there is no way to over drain the frontal lobe area -- there shouldn't be ANY fluid in there. As for the old shunt, now that the new shunt is in, the hope is to start reducing the drainage number to drain more and get the ventricles down to a more normal size. But this needs to be done slowly and carefully so as not to over drain, as we did before. We don't know how long it will take to get this all stabilized. We don't even know what the right setting will be for Josh. So we'll be dealing with the settings on the old shunt for a while yet, mostly on a trial and error basis.
As you can see from the picture below, it appears that the surgery will cause Josh's eyes to look bruised again.
Mary spent several hours with Josh today, and Josh was sleeping most of the time she was there. Paul was with Josh from 6:00 am until he went into surgery at 8:30 and again, after some long work-related telephone calls, all afternoon and evening. Mary is still quite sick, but SO much better than she's been. She has a normal, painful cough instead of a deep, gut-wrenching one. So that's good.
Thank you all for your concern, your prayers, and your love.
Today's big news was Josh's surgery. The neurosurgeon put a second shunt in Josh's head. Both of us noticed quickly and independently that the shunts are not evenly aligned -- the first shunt is toward the back on his right side and the second shunt is toward the right on his first side. We were both surprised by that and we sure hope hair will make everything look normal. We are learning that looks come in second to medical requirements in situations like this!
The doctor said everything went well. Josh came out of the anesthesia pretty well and wasn't in much pain. He was alert and interactive all afternoon and evening and in pretty good spirits too. He atea good dinner and enjoyed flipping channels on the TV in the evening. Several people today saw Josh again for the first time in a couple of weeks, including medical personnel and Josh's cousin AJ (by videophone). All were quite surprised and impressed by the improvements he has made since their last interaction.
The new shunt is set to 4 and the old shunt stays at 7. The new shunt can easily be adjusted to drain more quickly if that is necessary, since there is no way to over drain the frontal lobe area -- there shouldn't be ANY fluid in there. As for the old shunt, now that the new shunt is in, the hope is to start reducing the drainage number to drain more and get the ventricles down to a more normal size. But this needs to be done slowly and carefully so as not to over drain, as we did before. We don't know how long it will take to get this all stabilized. We don't even know what the right setting will be for Josh. So we'll be dealing with the settings on the old shunt for a while yet, mostly on a trial and error basis.
As you can see from the picture below, it appears that the surgery will cause Josh's eyes to look bruised again.
Mary spent several hours with Josh today, and Josh was sleeping most of the time she was there. Paul was with Josh from 6:00 am until he went into surgery at 8:30 and again, after some long work-related telephone calls, all afternoon and evening. Mary is still quite sick, but SO much better than she's been. She has a normal, painful cough instead of a deep, gut-wrenching one. So that's good.
Thank you all for your concern, your prayers, and your love.
Thank you for all your patience, endurance, prayers and love.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to read that Mary is feeling at all better. Codeine is God's gift to pulmonary pain sufferers! I hope you slept a bit?
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping this shunt makes a leap of improvements for Josh!
You guys are doing such a great job -- keep up this most important work! I'm glad (and little jealous) that AJ got to visit with Josh over videophone. Let us know when he's up for other video-callers :) We love you and miss you like crazy! Wish we were there <3
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