Week 4, Day 2 of Jeannas recovery. Had a lovely Grandparent’s day at school. And, since it was a half-day, I was able to zip home to Vanc., and then back to Sunnyside hospital to bring Jeanna to see her awesome neurologist/neurotherapist, Dr. F____ (holding the name until/if I get permission) I hope I got his titles right; the fellow obviously has a brain roughly 87-million times bigger than mine. but he’s a really, really good fellow who obviously knows his stuff, and cares a great deal about his patients. Jeanna showed him again just how far she’s come. When he saw her about 3 weeks ago, she could barely say ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and write single words with her left hand. Now, today, she handed him…a list! She feels better when she makes lists; part of her therapy, y’see. She listed questions she had for him: 1) When will I be normal again? 2) What will they have to do to make me normal? 3) Will I always feel this way? Dr. F. was great. And he looked and sounded like David Duchovny, aka Agent Mulder from the old X-Files tv show.”Based on your youth, Jeanna, and the progress you’ve made so far, I could see you being almost at 100% within maybe, six months? A year at most.” Jeanna exhaled. “As to what to do…” Here was my worry. I’d read an article about Moyamoya. Without corrective surgery, the article said, it was almost certain that she’d have another stroke. “Not necessarily,” he said. “If she had moyamoya disease, that would be true. But Jeanna has Moyamoya syndrome. It’s less of a certainty, more a collection of events and behaviors.” Whew! “We’re going to wait maybe six months, then scan you again. If there is still a problem, we could do one of two procedures.” (Medical professionals, bear with me. I’m an English major. I’m relating this as I recall it.) “First, we could go into your brain, and basically attach your blood vessel to it, allowing it to ‘spring out’ little capillaries to support the main vessel and supply the brain with blood. “That’s really risky, though. So instead, IF we had to go into the brain (And I don’t think we will), what we would do instead is essentially ‘tie’ that blood vessel to another vessel, allow the capillaries to grow there, and they’ll be supported there instead.” What I liked about his delivery was that he addressed his comments to Jeanna directly. He still answered my questions, in fact extending our visit while he talked to another dept. with a question we had about how stroke affects NFP. Good fellow. And he turned a surgical glove into an inflated chicken for little Claire. Points for being cool to my daughter, even if she still says she wants to be a teacher. After, we had a lovely birthday party with Claire. Dinner was pizza, thanks to a family of old friends tonight. And an AMAZING strawberry lemonade cake! Whoo hoo! Katie even put together a treasure hunt for Claire’s presents, which she & Susie had also wrapped up and shopped for with Jeanna over the weekend (yep, I drove). Yeah, I think I’ll keep ‘em. Things went on for a bit. Media night, so we listened to some more TIm Staples on Youtube. A good night. Tiring, true. But a good night. Thank you, God, for all the blessings you give us, especially my wife’s recovery. Got to get back to my novenas, tho… JDM ———
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 06:13:08 +0000
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