Monday evening update and pictures!

Here she is, being her regular self! The bruising and blood shot eye are from the surgery. The shiny stuff on the top of her head are the staples from her surgery. The circular thing in her neck is called a pick line and is in place of her IV. The tube for her spinal fluid isn't showing.

Her pictures and poster. Still plenty of room to fill up!

Margaret being silly again with Bethany and I.

She is giving me the "You better put away the camera or I will stick you with my IV" look. LOL

Went down to the hospital yesterday after church and this evening. I'll start with yesterday...



Raechal, Bethany and I were down there yesterday. Her swelling had gone down and she seemed more alert. She was listening to us girls as we chatted and participating in the conversation as best she could. I think we were talking too fast for her. She was joking around with us, so that was fun. We brought her some books on tape so she could have something to listen to. We are still looking for the Prelude to Glory Books on tape or CD. She has been reading them. She is on book 7 or 8 (I can't remember- I'll check). If you have them and are willing to lend them out, we would love it! Overall, she did well. She was wanting to sit up, but the nurse said she had 1 week before they would let her sit up. Her parents arrived from Mexico and her sister came in from Washington. They were able to see her last night and will stay for some time to help out around the house and take shifts at the hospital.



Tonight I went down and spent some time with her. She again is doing well. We were able to get some more information, although at this point it is still a little unclear. Here is what I know! They will go in and do an angiogram (sp?) to determine if she is having vasal spasms. They will enter through her femur artery and go up to her brain where they will inject a dye and see how it flows. If there appears to be any blockage, they will do an angioplast (sp?) to clear it. If everything is great and stays that way, she will be in ICU 10 days. We aren't sure if that means 10 MORE days, or 10 days TOTAL. If there are vasal spasms, that add 5 days to her ICU stay for each one. The other concern is mini strokes at this point and I have no idea how they check for those. The nurse indicated that once they move her to the 5th floor, she will most likely be there for as long as she was in the ICU. Again, best case senario. The nurse said tonight that her spinal fluid drainage has slowed. This means they may be able to remove the drain from her head soon. It is really bothering her. Once they remove it, there is a chance that the fluid could build up again and it would result in more sleepiness and confusion. If that happened, they would go in and put the drain back in.



The nurse indicated that every 24 hours that she is in bed, she loses 3% of her muscle mass. I don't have time to verify that statistic, so I am just going to believe her. What that means though is that once she comes home, she will be very weak and tired. They said that she will need help daily with normal stuff for 6-8 weeks before her mobility is back to "normal", whatever that may be. Nothing was said about any other level of functioning.



She was still pretty confused about some things and clear as a bell on others. They are not keeping her sedated, but she is on pain medicine and they wake her every hour, so the nurse said she is probably pretty tired. She was complaining tonight that her head hurt, so I imagine any residual pain meds from the surgery have worn off. She recieved pain meds before we left tonight, and was planning to go to sleep. We left her listening to the classical radio station, which she seemed to really enjoy. Hopefully it will drown out the other noise.



Doug and Tom got a donation account set up through capital one today. It is tax deductible and hopefully we will have a paypal account set up tomorrow for those who want to donate long distance. I will post all the details tomorrow.



Thanks again for everyone who has donated time, money, or items needed and for those who are not only looking out for the Johnson family, but for Tom and I as well. We love you all.