Day 3. Never a dull moment. Elisha continues to strengthen with each passing moment, but his body persists in its objection. He has a nagging fever that ranges between 99.1 (KMAG) and 102.1 (KENA) (37.3 and 38.9 Celsius if that is preferable). This is being closely followed by the staff and managed with acetaminophen. Additionally they are culturing a blood sample and performed a urinalysis to help identify any potential infections as early as possible. The latter has returned with no anomalies, but the former is still being processed. Elisha does generally seem to be in better form today. He has been willing to remain awake and start feeding (rotting) the remaining hemisphere with some educational television (Spongebob Sqaurepants). He has also took some time to catch up on his texting. :) We are excited by the continued steps toward a return to normalcy. Although these steps forward are great, the major event of the day was the removal of his Jackson-Pratt drain which was pulling any accumulated blood from his cranium to ensure appropriate intracranial pressure and provide insight into any unanticipated bleeding. This was a fairly unpleasant experience for everyone involved, but with an extremely patient neurological surgery resident, and equally patient focused nurse, mom, and myself we were able to extract about 10 inches of tubing from within his cranium. He did not enjoy the removal process, but it provided the opportunity to get his head unwrapped and be one step closer to independence. The next steps will be to continue to monitor the fever and the cultured CSF from the extra ventricular drain that remains. Once the fever is under control, the red blood count reaches the threshold defined by the nuerosurgery group, and assuming his intracranial pressure remains less than 20 mmHg he will be a candidate for a transfer to the step down unit. He will also be visited by a physical therapist tomorrow to perform an initial evaluation of general muscle tone and what level of intervention will be required to get back to his pre-operative capability. Thanks to everyone for the additional outpouring of intercessory prayer for Elishas fever. Please continue to join us in the prayer that the Lord will continue to shelter Elisha with his protective and healing hand. Also we pray for bolstered strength and clarity of mind to keep ourselves as emotionally detached as possible so that we can provide a calming influence for: 1 - Elisha with the feeling of safety which is hard for a scared child to obtain under adverse circumstances. 2 - The medical staff an environment in which they can effectively provide care for our child without having to split attention to keep us from escalating an already stressful situation.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:53:54 +0000
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