Saturday Morning

I have just spoken to our t who is awaiting the arrival of further family to go see her Mom. If she had any awareness, she would be so pleased at how those who are her closest love ones have gathered around her through this. I have shared with her the latest crop of all of your supportive and hugely caring comments, wishes, gifts of positive energy, payers, etc. and she is very touched and supported by all your good wishes and knowing there are so many of our friends who are caring about us all as we pass through this.

Today may well be a big day. We will be 72 hours out from her surgery and stroke and they are planning on giving her a CT scan today. We imagine that the scan will enable them to tell what is the location and extent of her brain damage. It may well give us the opportunity to know what it is that the future will hold. We (and especially our t) are on one hand looking forward to knowing but very fearful of what having that information will bring.

Yesterday they had her bandage off her neck and she has the mother of all carotid incisions. Her surgeon said her carotid was way more clogged than he has usually seen, and that the consistency of the plaque was about like toothpaste. She has an incision that goes diagonally up the side of her neck to almost up to her ear. It must be about eight inches long, and is way gruesome looking.

Looking at her as someone with some slight amount of medical background, but only enough to be barely more knowledgeable than your just average guy, the most encouraging thing I have seen is that her facial musculature shows no signs of hemiplegia. Additionally, she is breathing on her own now. They still have her trach in, but it is no longer functioning other than to supply the same level of oxygen support as she might get from a cannula. They had a terrible time getting her vent trach established because of the huge swelling of her anatomy from the surgery and they don't want to remove it until they are sure it will no longer be required. they don't want to have to reestablish it once it is removed. I think that is positive and hopeful. On the other hand Eleanor, who is the most verbal and social of people so far has shown no signs of any sort of responsiveness to anyone in even so much as a hand squeeze, or an eye blink, toe wiggle, or anything else.

She does seem to move her right leg in some limited degree though and to have sensation in reaction to irritation of her upper right arm. So we shall see what further healing brings her.

I verified her age yesterday. When sue first posted about this Thursday she'd estimated her age as 78. I then edited the post on Friday to change it to 75, which was what I'd thought she was. She is in fact 72.

To all our friends out there who smoke, please as you read this think about the consequences of a fifty year smoking career. T's Mom is way too young at 72 to be facing these health consequences and it is clear they are very much directly the result of her nicotine addiction.

Thank you all again and we appreciate so much all of your caring, and positive energy.

All the best,

Tom

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