Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Elizabeth slept fine on Tuesday night. She was told if her sutures continued to leak spinal fluid she'd have yet another procedure done, so she couldn't eat— incase there was a surgery.

By mid afternoon she was in rare form. Crabby about not eating. You didn't want to talk about food or bring something in. She'd jump on you. So everyone was pretty good about not doing that.

Wednesday (late afternoon) was the day for the neurosurgery review board. Elizabeth's was first up. Her father was able to actually hear the physicians discuss her surgery. He said he heard all the words, but it didn't really compute. Too much medical jargon for him to make a lot of it; but he did find out that it was a rare form of tumor without a history as to why it would form. It has nothing to do with foods eaten or not eaten; with environmental issues nor with health. He was told sometimes cells just go a muck. And Elizabeth's had done that.

We were beginning to think it might have been the Chantix that she used to stop smoking. We had read a lot about it and it seemed to fit. However, we have moved on from that supposition. Jim (Elizabeth's dad) also learned it was 20% of her brain size! We knew it was big, but wow. We had likened the size to an avocado.

Elizabeth's sister, Karyn, is her primary caregiver during this ordeal. Mom and Dad help out, but the bottom line is that she's staying at Karyn's home. So Elizabeth calls Karyn, Nurse Ratched. And they both call this event, "One Flew over the Avocado". Then they will both laugh. Dr. Harris after the second surgery came in wondering which of us was Elizabeth's Nurse Ratched. He had a smile when asking. Karyn owned up and they enjoyed the joke.

So Elizabeth's infectious humor was evident to her physicians. And when her dad dropped in on Wednesday afternoon before the neurosurgery review board meeting, Elizabeth told him to tell her doctor that she was HUNGRY! Her doctor decided she could have dinner and her mom got there in time to see her "eat the whole thing". Yep, she would have gotten a star if they were being handed out.

She went to sleep Wednesday on a full tummy and knew if there was an leakage the next day would be a hungry one.