Surgery Scheduled

I just got back from visiting Cindy. I took her outside for awhile, she loves to get some fresh air and feel the warm weather and enjoy the sunshine!

She is still on the antibiotics, but her last bag of it will get hooked up at 10:00 tonite, so that will be done by tomorrow morning. Only the dr that ordered can actually finish it, and that goes with everything else that she is dealing with. She has some staples in her side yet from two weeks ago where the chest tube went in, but they were forgotten, and only one of the surgeon team drs can actually order those removed. All rather complicated when there are so many doctors involved.

The platelets were quite low again this morning along with her white blood cells now. She is getting transfusions for both. Another big problem yet is her food intake. She is still just so nauseated and is getting medication for that, but it makes it so hard to eat that way. They are now counting calories, so we ordered up candy bars, hopefully they go down OK. I made chicken noodle soup and brought a supply up this morning, that is something that usually goes down. The dr said that it is probably the antibiotics that is causing it, and it takes about 24 hrs for that to to away after it is finished, which is Friday morning and that is when the next surgery is scheduled.

The neurosurgeon was also in when I was there, so we asked more questions. They are concerned about bacteria, since the tubes were in her belly area and that had infection in it. Since there is a chance that could have gone back to the shunt, they want to replace both shunts to be safe, and with Cindy that is probably a very wise thing to do. They will leave the tubes that are going into her brain alone, just connect the new shunts to the new drainage tubes and this time will connect those two drainage tubes before they go down into her stomach, so lthere will just be one. Hope that answers some questions some of you have. He also said he is planning on keeping her on as a patient which is wonderful, and one of our big concerns. He also said once they get these shunts in place and working right, they should last up to 20 years. She wants to badly to just be well and live a normal life.

Please pray that the platelets and white count go up for Friday and that surgery will go well. This will be her 7th surgery in 6 months time. Thanks again for all the support, emails to Cindy and most importantly, all your prayers!

Kathy