14. February 2009 by admin.

Sarah has been vomiting everything she eats or drinks today, but she has not been feeling like eating very much. Its not like before her surgery. She actually feels sick to her stomach now. They have her on I.V. fluids. Dr. Mangano is thinking that it is some kind of stomach bug. If so, I guess anyone who has come in her room could have brought it in with them. I am not totally convinced, but I appear to be the only one who isn’t. Sarah is having a lot of pain in her neck. Everyone is giving different reasons for that. None of them are winning me over, but I am not a doctor. She does not have a fever.

She is having a CT scan on Monday (not due to her current symptoms, it was in the plan). She will not be going to the rehab floor. If she can get over what ever is making her sick she will most likely be going home next week.

Please pray that whatever this is making her sick passes quickly.

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13. February 2009 by admin.

They pulled her brain drain today and unwrapped her head. She took a walk down the hall and back. She is still having some pain, but doing ok. When I left her today she was getting a massage. The rehab attending hasn’t come to evaluate her yet, so I am not sure if she will be heading to rehab tomorrow or not. She still has some swelling on the left side of her head and face. It seems like it might be too quick to get her to rehab, but what do I know. I have a feeling she will get to rest this weekend and make the move next week.

After the unwrapping

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12. February 2009 by admin.

Sarah is doing well. She is having more pain this time around.

 Dr. Mangano said that he will probably pull her drain tomorrow and hopes to get her to rehab on Friday. If that happens I would guess that she could go home after a week of intense therapy. She will have another CAT scan and MRI before she leaves.

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9. February 2009 by admin.

Well we are just two days shy of when all this started with Sarah. She is in the OR now. We have not heard anything, but should be notified when they actually start to cut. I will keep this updated as we are updated.

8:50am

Official start time is 8:50am. She is doing OK.

11:30am

Sarah is doing fine and the surgery is going good.

12:30pm

We just got word that they are starting to close. It may be another couple of hours before we get to see her.

3:45pm

We are in ICU with Sarah. She is doing fine. She is getting an xray right now. She will be getting a CAT scan in about an hour. Dr. Mangano talked to us when we first got up here and told us that he removed about 55% of the hemisphere and retraced his steps on the back part that remains to make sure there are no connections. He also said that they had to use the drill to open her skull. He was not expecting that so I guess she is a good healer.

6:30pm

Dr. Mangano stopped in to see Sarah one more time before he went home. He showed us her CAT scan and said it looks great. He expects that she will be able to go back to the Nuero floor sometime tomorrow. I sent Kim home for the night so she can spend some time with the other kids and get some sleep. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and words of encouragement. Sarah’s school made her a big banner. She loved it. Hopefully she will be back with them very soon. Thank you Hailey for the valentine card. It Rocks!

The Lord certainly has seen her through these times and brought her though stronger each time. She is showing no more deficits than she had this morning.

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8. February 2009 by admin.

Well Sarah’s surgery was moved to the first case tomorrow (Monday) morning. We hope that everything is ok with Dr. Mangano’s family. We will pray for them as we pray for Sarah.

Last night I took Logan to a Blue Jackets game. He needed to get out and have some fun. Our friend Brandy babysat Ava. I thought I would include this picture Brandy sent me last night. Ava loves to dress up like a princess just like her big sister. This is one of those comic relief moments that Ava is so good at providing.

Ava is a rocking princess

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6. February 2009 by admin.

Well Sarah was down in the pre-op area and they just gave her something to make her drowsy. At that time Dr. Mangano came in and told us that he had a family emergency and needed to leave. He gave us the choice of letting Dr. Crone (Director of Neurosurgery) do the procedure or reschedule for Monday. We decided to reschedule for Monday. Dr. Crone is a world class neurosurgeon but we just felt that he didn’t know Sarah enough. I will update the blog later after we get back to her room and get settled back in.

I am sure God has a reason for the delay.

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6. February 2009 by admin.

Sarah’s surgery time was moved from 7:30 to 9:00. We had a lengthy discussion with Dr. Mangano this evening. The procedure we decided was best isn’t a full anatomical hemispherectomy. It is what is being called a “modified functional hemispherectomy”. Basically they are removing most of the hemisphere, but not all of it. This will lower the chance of serious complications. The areas that will be left have “hot spots” but are not causing any seizures to manifest which means that they are disconnected and shouldn’t cause any problems. We just felt that this was the right course of action at this time.

I will keep the blog updated tomorrow. Please pray for Sarah.

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3. February 2009 by admin.

I have spoken to what I am calling the Triad. Dr. Lee showed me some seizure activity they picked up over the weekend and he is on board for Sarah having an anatomical hemispherectomy. Dr. Franz was suggesting this from the start so he just came in to see if I had any questions. Dr. Mangano came in last to tell me that Sarah will have surgery Friday morning at 7:30.

The EEG results they got over the weekend confirmed that there is no seizure activity coming from the right side. I will update the blog throughout the day on Friday just like I did for her other surgeries.

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2. February 2009 by admin.

We have seen no seizures. Sarah is about the same, but we have noticed that since they took her off of her seizure meds her personality has been a little brighter. We got moved to a bigger room. I have a feeling that if she doesn’t show any seizure activity by tomorrow they will send her home to wait. It will be nice that we don’t have to give her all these meds all the time. She was taken off the TPN (IV food). She is eating and keeping it down. I have some strange theories about what is going on with her but coming from me they don’t mean much. Just wild speculation with no standing.

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