The biggest news is that KTRose is doing great. At oh-dark-thirty this morning a resident came in and Took off her dressing, so we’ve seen the incision now and everything. Bug and ugly, but she’s doing great. There is even talk of letting us go home today if we want (two days after brain surgery!) because she’s passing all their tests with flying colors, up and walking, talking and playing games. God is so good, she is doing really well.
The other big news is that even though her MRI showed no compression, they absolutely found the issue! The MRI was right that there was no compression. However Dr. Carson was right in suspecting the one vein. It had attached itself along the Trigeminal nerve. The Trigeminal nerve had also attached itself to the Tentorium membrane that separates the cerebellum from the rest of the brain. Dr. Carson separated and padded off the vein, and also the membrane which he said was no easy task because it was like it was superglued along it and it had to be scraped off bit by bit. Once all of that was done he also found a cluster of small vessels that had attached itself under the nerve. He didn’t think they were causing a problem, but separated them all off and padded them off too.
The Tarentium membrane is flexible and filled with brain fluid and pulses with every heartbeat, so it absolutely would be irritating the TN over time and causing her problem.
KTRose has IV pain meds, and a booster button for her own use, but we are on the second day after surgery and she hasn’t pressed it yet. She also hasn’t gotten sick from the anesthesia. We did have one close call where we thought she was going to after she had had one of her first swallows of water, and sat up to adjust her pillow. She was just getting a little too active a little too quickly. But she recovered and hasn’t done that again. They have also had her on a mild anti-nausea from the beginning, and could increase that and adjust the cocktail if she needed it.
After one night in the PICU she was moved to a regular room yesterday. She took a wheelchair tour of the floor, then later walked lap around the floor, went to the game/craft room and talked to one of the other patients and a volunteer for about an hour, and we took her to the cafeteria/foot court in the wheelchair. All that the day after brain surgery, I’m amazed!
The only thing not back to normal is her appetite. The resident visiting us this morning said that’s not uncommon with the amount of fluids she’s taking in. They will decree her IV fluids today and hopefully her appetite will start coming back.
Thanks so much for your prayers and support. I nev would have pushed the way I did, refusing to accept atypical migranes, had I not found this site and one other that so exactly described her pain. Her first attack was July 14th this year, and December 4th we had MVD with one of the top surgeons in the country. As long and awful the road was, I know that’s amazingly fast for TN patients.
I will post more pictures and all off my real camera when I get home, and will keep updating as we wean off Trileptal in a couple months to see for certain it’s all gone.