Day 8

Hannah’s recovery from her third surgery was amazing compared to her first two.  Last night she was awake and talking within a couple hours after surgery.  She did not experience any real facial swelling, and was only on pain medication for the first couple hours. During the night, she continued to improve.  Talking more, and even ringing the nurse herself to ask for ice chips when she couldn’t wake dad.  Even though, as she informed anyone who came by, that she had tried by shouting “David Robert Turner, wake up!” .

We were somewhat stuck in the PICU area for most of the day since her neurosurgeon was tied up in a long surgery and couldn’t release her back to the PEMU area until late afternoon.

During her stay in the PICU though, she got a visit from Sunny, another one of the pet therapy dogs.

During the night she had three seizures and another during the day.  She also had a strange aura/seizure right before leaving he PICU that really frightened her and was a lot different than what she was used to. It also caused a quick onset of nausea and vomiting. 

This seizure activity was enough to give our neurologists enough information to decipher where her seizures are originating from (see our next post), and she was able to start back on her anti-seizure medications.

About 5:00 pm we were able to move back to the PEMU area which is so much nicer than the PICU.  The hospital really spoils the PEMU patients.  We get a private room designed for two patients all to ourselves, which means we have a lot of room to spread out and to accommodate visitors.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) she is scheduled to have cortical mapping done.  This is a long and involved (lots of people in the room) process.  If you’re thinking of visiting, you might want to wait until the late afternoon/evening, as it will be pretty crowded in the room with doctors, nurse, EEG techs, family life specialist, and parents.