Hi Everyone,
What a day for Corey! The ambulance crew picked her up at 7am for her tests. She had an MRI and EEG today. Corey’s VP shunt has a magnet within it. This type of shunt requires her to have two additional x-rays, one before/after to check that the settings weren’t changed with the magnification of the MRI. The setting did change. The neurologist at Bryn Mawr will check with the neurosurgeon from Christiana as to what the new setting should be and it will be reset tomorrow. The shunt she has is amazing. It has a magnetic setting mechanism. When the settings need to be changed, reset or adjusted, the Doctor uses a magnetic wand to place over the area of the brain where the shunt is located. The wand reads the levels and they can adjust the settings by waving this “magic wand” over the shunt readjusting the settings and Corey doesn’t need an invasive procedure! Brilliant!! She truly is Sleeping Beauty…the neurologist must be the fairy godparent with the magic wand.
The MRI reading showed that the ventricles are still larger than normal, however, that’s not uncommon for this type of severe brain injury. Great news, none of the hemmatoma’s from the accident continue to bleed. In fact, the largest on the right side of the brain has dropped in size from 2.9 to 2.1. That’s what we were hoping would occur.
Then it was on to the EEG. This test will confirm if there has been any seizure activity. The test took over an hour to perform but the results won’t be back for a few days. Stay tuned.
Corey arrived back to BM by 1:30. There was no resting; she was whisked away to see the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. GREAT NEWS, her vocal chords are functioning normally and she’s responded to the antibiotics for the tracheal bronchitis. The Doctor confirmed that the vocal chords have not been damaged. The swelling in the back of the throat has decreased and there doesn’t appear to be any reason that she can’t begin “trending” towards the trach removal. They will begin capping her trach again tomorrow through Sunday. If she tolerates it for the full 72 hours, she will have the trach removed on Monday. Keep your fingers crossed gang!
PT and OT didn’t want her to miss them, so off to the gym she went for 3 sessions. Poor girl was completely exhausted and slept the whole evening. Keep in mind; sleep is just as important as the daily activity and stimulation she receives. Overall, it was a good day with some good news.
Rest well Sleeping Beauty. You are healing and we are praying you will come back to us very soon!
We love you Corey. xoxo