Four Weeks Post Op

Hard to believe it has been 4 weeks already. MK has been going to school full time this week and is doing ok. Her neck does get sore some after sitting up all day at school, but she seems to be handling it well.

Her range of motion on her neck is much greater turning to one side then the other. Since we meet with Dr. Barrow next week, I figured we would wait until then to see what stretching exercises or physical therapy he recommends.

My next post will be May 5th after we meet with Dr. Barrow.

Three Weeks Post Op

Tuesday was three weeks since MK had her surgery. She has been going back to school this week for half days and is doing well. It is hard to believe she had major brain surgery and is back at school already. Our next appt. with Dr. Barrow is May 5th.

Third Day Back Home

Mk is continuing to make a great recovery. Since we have been back from the hospital she has not had any headaches. She is rapidly catching up with all of her homework, with some help from some of her friends.

I just read a comment to one of my posts that on May 3rd the TV show HOUSE will be about a girl with Chiari Malformation. I hope it is realistic and factual.

Based on how well things are going I probably will not post again until next week once MK has gone back to school. Here is a picture of her incision area (minus the stitches) after she had been able to wash her hair for the first time in two weeks.

Second Day Back Home

MK is doing well. When I woke up this morning around 8 AM she was already up and in her brother's room using his desk and doing home work. The kid is driven. Yesterday while I could barely keep my eyes open she was printing off her assignments.

She went to bed last night around 9 PM and slept till around 7:30. I went to bed around 9:30 and did not wake up until around 8 am. After seeing that MK was ok I decided to go into work since Holly will be off today and tomorrow.

Holly and MK went up to the local bird feed store and to run a few errands. MK loves to play with the dog at the bird feed store. She seems to be doing very well.

More later

Home Again

Well we are back home!! I can't tell you how good it is to be home. MK is doing great. The last two days have been the best since her surgery. Only needed a couple of Tylenol for the past 48 hours. What a change compared to Sunday. Now we are just on steroids and antibiotic. The stitches came out this morning as planned and her incision area is looking good.

Next order of business is laundry, rest, rest, rest.

More tomorrow.

Day Four Back in the Hospital

All news is still good. Dr. just came in and said we should be going home mid day. A medical student just came in and took out her stitches. The cultures are still negative which is good news.

Mk woke up hungry and ready to go home.

I will add to this post later today.

Day Three Back at the Hospital

Good news today. Shortly after my last post MK woke up around 2 AM and was hungry and wanted to talk. Since she had just started taking the steroids at 5 PM the night before, I was amazed at how quickly it made a difference. Since then she has been eating all her meals, with the exception of dinner tonight and that is because she just finished a big milkshake.

All of her vitals are good and the infectious control doctor stopped by and said that the cultures are still clear, which continues to tell everyone she does not have bacterial meningitis. By ruling out bacterial meningitis then it would be chemical meningitis and thus the treatment with steroids.

Since that time her headaches have been minor and infrequent. Today she had visitors and then watched tv for many hours and played on the computer ( she had to watch the latest version of House on the computer. You would think she had enough of the doctor thing). She is taking a nap now. So all in all a very good day so far.

All the doctors are saying that if the cultures still show no infection tomorrow then MK will be able to go home tomorrow. We are all very hopeful.

If we go home tomorrow they would prescribe her some antibiotics for the urinary infection and some more steroids. This is much better then if she did have bacterial meningitis where she would have to have a port installed so that she could continue to take IV antibiotics for over a week.

MK will most likely get her stitches removed tomorrow and then they want us to wait two days before she can get the incision area wet. A couple of more days with the greasy kid look.

Thats it for now, if anything changes I will add to this post.

Day Two Back at the Hospital

Later in the day on April 12...the doctors are thinking this may not be a bacterial infection after all but that MK may have aseptic meningitis as a result of her surgery. This could be caused by her body reacting to the patch that they put on her dura. The treatment for this is steroids and they have just started her on a course of oral steroids. She is still on all the antibiotics as well and will remain so until they rule out a bacterial infection (about another 36 hours to 48 hours). (As one doctor put it, she's being hit with a bazooka of medicines that should knock out whatever ails her.)

MK has been very sleepy today and had some pain from the headaches. We hope that she'll rally some tomorrow but the doctor said the rest may be just what she needs. The steroids should help with her headaches, too.

Well it is 12:15 AM,

Pretty boring this time of night when you can not sleep. Holly and MK are both sleeping which is good. I am hoping the steroids she is getting is doing the trick. I can't tell you how disappointing this set back is to everyone. We are still very impressed with everyone at Emory. The ER has a little to be desired. Maybe it was because it was so crowded and we spent the first couple of hours in a bed in the hall way. Once they moved MK into a room in the ER everything was as expected, very impressive.

Excuse my rambling if I go on and on. There is not much to do at this time of night. Do you know how many times someone comes in to check things, take vitals, or other things, you got it -- All the time.

That is it for now, I am going to move to computer card games. Next post tomorrow. Keep MK in your prayers.

Back In the Hospital

Well things were going along ok until late Friday. Early Friday I took MK to Walmart to get her out of the house. Things had seemed to be going ok with her pain under control. That night she got a bad headache and then it continued into Saturday until around 5 PM. At that point we celebrated Ryan's birthday and had some cake. That night MK slept well but when she woke up on Sunday and had her headaches again. At that point Holly and I decided to take her to the ER at Emory. They saw she had a low grad fever and a urinary track infection. They then decided to do a spinal tap to see if she had an infection there also.

The results of the spinal tap were positive so she is now on some heavy duty antibiotics. At this point we are not sure how long we will be in the hospital. Right now it is 2:45 am and she is sleeping well.

As I learn more I will continue to update the blog.

Post Surgery - One Week

It is hard to believe it has been a little over a week since MK had her surgery. Looking back on the past week I want to let everyone know how impressed we all were with Emory University Hospital. All the Drs., nurses, staff, and facilities were top notch.

Recovery is going well. About once a day MK is getting a strong headache, but other than that she is eating and feeling well. She is scheduled to have her stitches removed on April 16th. Dr. Barrow's nurse likes to keep them in a little longer than most. MK's follow-up appt. with Dr. Barrow is scheduled for May 5th.

Hopefully after MK has her stitches removed she will then be released to go back to school. From our perspective we need to work on stretching her neck muscles and making sure we feel comfortable with her going back to school. I am glad that she will be staying home next week also. I don't want to push her recovery.

No more posts until after her stitches come out.

Day 6

Mk slept very well last night until about 5 AM and then needed some pain medication. When she later woke up around 7 AM she had a bad headache. After taking a muscle relaxer and an Advil she started feeling better and moved to the chair. At that point she was ready for breakfast and had some honey nut Cheerios.

Tomorrow we will call the doctors office to set up her appt. to have her stitches removed. Based on the discharge papers her stitches should be able to be removed somewhere around 10 to 14 days after her surgery. Until one day after her stiches are removed she can not get her incision wet, so that means she can not wash her hair.

Six weeks after the operation she will have a follow up with Dr. Barrow and then I would imagine she will get an MRI around 3 months after surgery.

Today's goal is to have her come down stairs, she wants to plant some of her flower baskets she had received a while back. We will also work with her on stretching her neck and walking.

Day 5

Well after a good night's sleep it was time to get the house in order for MK. I went to get a hand held shower head, 50 feet of TV cable, and a baby monitor. I put the shower seat together and installed the hand held shower head in our walk in shower. Now MK can sit and take a nice shower and not worry about getting her incision wet. She will not be able to wash her hair until after the stitches come out. That would be about 14 days after surgery.

I ran the tv cable so that MK now has a 32 inch TV with DVD in the guest room. We also set up the baby monitor in the room so that when she needs something or wants us to bring her something, all she needs to do is just talk. Yes she now has a first class room. Above are some pictures of her in the guest room.

MK took a shower in her new top of the line walk in shower room, and then had a P&J sandwich, banana, and cookie.

Two of her friends have been visiting for the past hour and just left. That was good for her even if it tired her out. Above are a couple of pictures of her incision. Sorry they are blurred.

Day 4

Day 4 was kind of a blur. The night before we had moved to a normal room, which was nice but much smaller. They said MK would be able to rest there better, but they seemed to come in that room more than they did in ICU. Above is a picture of the room.

Mk was able to get up and with the help of Holly take a shower and put on her own pajamas instead of the open back hospital gown. Those two actions made a world of difference in how MK felt.

Later OTs and PTs came in and worked with her then had her walk the hallway.

I decided to go home and do some laundry, get the mail, and maybe get some rest. If only things went as planned. Just after I got home Holly called and said that they would be releasing her soon. So as soon as the laundry was done I headed back down town. Then we were in hurry up and wait mode. We saw Dr. Barrow one more time and then around 4:45 we were released to go home. Just in time for Atlanta rush hour on a Friday evening before a holiday. To all of our surprise traffic was light. With us driving in the HOV lane we made it home in about 40 mins. I must say I did a great job on making it one of my smoothest rides MK has ever had.

Once we were all home, MK sat in a chair in the living room while Holly went to get the prescriptions filled. I then move the Lazy-boy chair up to the guest room. That wore my butt out since it came from the basement. MK walked up stairs and sat down in the recliner while I worked on getting the bed ready. I placed a bunch of blankets and pillows under the mattress so that it was inclined. By sleeping and resting in the inclined position it takes any pressure of the back of her head.

Mk ate a bowl of Cheerios and half of a McDonald's hamburger.

Holly and MK slept in the Guest room last night and I got to sleep in my bed. Everyone slept very well. Mk only woke up once to go to the rest room and to take a pain pill. It is amazing what a good night's sleep did for everyone.

It is good to be home.

Wrapping up day 3

Well we finally moved out of ICU. We are in room G332. Nice but not as big as the ICU Room. With everything we have and Holly and I it is a little cramped. MK made the move fine. She has been having an upset stomach, mainly because of the medications and the fact that she is not eating very much. Right after we got to the new room, MK threw up, the good news was it did not hurt her doing so. Holly and I are going to push the food and drink from now on.

Holly is taking a nap while I watch MK.

That is about it for day 3. I will add some posts tomorrow.

Day 3

Day 3 is going well. Mk's Fever has gone down and the pain is under control with perkacet (sp). The best news is the only thing left attached to her is the IV line. Mk was just able to get up and walk (with assistance) to the toilet in the bathroom. She is now setting up in a chair in her room and texting her friends.

I am sure she will have her ups and downs but we are very happy with her progress.

We are still waiting for a normal room, but I must admit the ICU room is wonderful.

Ryan stopped by again this morning before heading back to college.

More to follow later on this post.