First Update

Hello. Krystal here. MaKayle gave me the assignment of writing the first blog post. And just FYI, this will be my first blog post ever! Being the only one not married and without kids, I often don't have very exciting things to share ;), so I don't have a blog!

I'd like to start by telling you all how grateful we are for your love, concern, and support. We know that your thoughts and prayers are making a difference. We always share with mom your well wishes and let her know that you're thinking of her. I know it makes a big difference to her, and she often gets teary eyed as I tell her how many people love her and are cheering for her.

So the road to recovery so far has been a little longer and more difficult than we expected. She has been unable to move her legs, her left arm and her head. Dr. Jensen, who performed the surgery, told us it would be a day in the ICU and then 3 or 4 days in the hospital, and she'd probably be able to go home. Tomorrow marks a week since the surgery and we are still in the hospital. Mom has been such a trooper and is hanging in there, despite not being able to rest very well. For those of you who've spent any time in a hospital, you know what that's like - with blood draws, and vital checks, and med schedules, being un-interrupted for more than 2 or 3 hours is unheard of!

Anyways, I'll get to what you all want to know - how's she doing and where do we go from here? Dr. Jensen said surgery went well, and he was able to remove all of the tumor. Post surgery she's had 2 MRI's of the head, and one of the spine, and everything looks fine. Except for normal swelling, things look good. Dr. Jensen said the loss of movement in her legs was normal due to the area of the brain he was working with and would be temporary. The loss of movement in her left arm and head and neck were unexpected - that's why they've done an extra MRI on the head and the spine to make sure everything's okay. So they've been a little "baffled." Dr. Jensen explained to us that in order to get in to the tumor, he had to pry the two halves of the brain apart, and one of the areas that may have been affected was the secondary motor movement (or something like that :)) area, which basically tells your muscles what to do to move. So probably, the brain just needs time to heal.

Another complication is that her sodium level dropped drastically, which caused weakness (probably contributed to the loss of movement in her arms), a seizure and headaches. Again, doctors said that sodium loss with neurosurgery patients is normal, but not that drastic. We always knew mom was special, but all these rare medical things just confirm it! One in a million, she is. To fix the sodium problem, they have limited her water intake (and we know how much she loves her water!), give her salt pills, and an IV drip of sodium. They are closely monitoring her sodium level, and it was back up, but had dropped again slightly by last night.

So she won't be discharged from the hospital until her sodium level is under control, and the plan we've heard is that she will move to Rehab to continue working to get the movement back. She gets a little better everyday! We're seeing more movement in her left hand and arm, neck and head, and she can wiggle her toes. She has great physical therapists working with her, and she's doing a great job trying to get that movement back.

The biopsy of the tumor determined that the tumor was malignant - with the same types of cells as the tumor they removed in her foot. Her case is being presented to the "tumor board" today, and most likely she'll have to do radiation. We're also waiting for the word on when she'll be able to do chemo again.

This was a long update! Hopefully they'll be shorter in the future! Thanks again for all of your love and support, and keep praying for her!