Back to the O.R.

Today at our neuro surgeon appointment we met with the NP (after and hour of waiting) and she could not believe how great heather looked, especially her incision site that still had stitches in. She removed the stitches, the site looks great. Then i told the N.P. that the home health nurse had removed the steri strips off the other incision where the staples previously were and she had told Heather that it was open and did not look good. I asked her to check, i had not seen it either and boy was it wide open. There were only two staples there, it was a small incision where the drain had been in her head. But the staples were removed before her radiation, and the area opened up due to the damage radiation causes. Today it was bigger than the initial incision was and it was very deep. It had green drainage coming from it. But it did not smell (this is key in the medical field). The doc thinks it is not infected since heather has not had fevers or any pain, and he thinks that the radiation killed all the bacteria if there ever was any.

So where does that leave us???? Well usually you don't want to sew that up because it traps the infection in there. But since radiation was done in that area, Heather's won't heal without some help, it must be stitched up. He contemplated doing it in the office but he decided that it needs wound debreedment. THis is when they go in and irrigate it with saline and scrap off a lot of tissue and try to clean it out. It can get pretty painful. So the next step was to do it tonight as an out patient procedure. Then he decided to do it tomorrow morning. Well of course last minute charley the only time open in the operating room is before scheduled cases. So Heather will have this procedure done in the operating room at st. joes tomorrow morning at 0500. She has to be there at 0400 since it was too late today for them to process any of the paper work and get her signed up. When the doc gets in there and sees what is going on he will decide if Heather needs to stay in the hospital and get IV antibiotics. So we still don't really know the full plan. He said he may even want to keep her overnight in the hospital to get more IV antibiotics.

As far as the re imaging of her brain. He said that they typically do it 3 months post of, sooner if problems appear. But Heather is doing so well. She meets with her radiologist in 2 weeks and that doctor will also recommend when Heather needs to have her brain checked again. If it is sooner than 3 months then they will follow that plan. The doc has no problem with Heather starting chemo except for her head wound. If it is not closing up well, then heather should not start chemo as it will supress her immune system and she needs that to heal the wound. So when she goes for her re check next week of the wound, we will know if she can start chemo or not. Oh how i hate uncertainty and not having a plan. Dr. Ho (the neuro surgeon) could not believe it was Heather today. She looks so much better than when he saw her the day she was discharged from the hospital. He never saw her at the nursing home. He tested Heathers strength and movement and they are pretty equal in her arms. Still the problem with her left leg. But he was so amazed. He told her she is a miracle and that he really did not think she would survive the surgery and there were many days post op that he thought she would pass. Thank you to everyone, people of all faiths and religions, for your prayers. So many of my co-workers who have not even met Heather have been praying for her. Friends from my college days and high school have fasted for her. This is a true testimony to fasting and prayer, and most importantly faith.