I am still stumbling across friends who don't know what has been going on with my mom so I thought I'd update everyone.
She recently had a test done to check the amount of blockage in her carotid artery. The test was done by injecting dye into her veins. The dye travels up to the brain. The doctor said her carotid artery was fine but her ventricles in her brain were abnormally large. Several tests later it was determined that she needed surgery. She has a "lesion" on her brain stem blocking the flow of fluid from her brain, thus causing swelling in the ventricles.
She had surgery (a ventriculostomy) on Thursday morning. They drilled a hole in her skull then made a hole in the base of her brain to make a new place for the fluid to drain. She stayed over night and was discharged the next day. Who knew you could have brain surgery and be discharged a day later?! She has a baseball size chunk of hair shaved off from the hairline on her forhead back. Luckily she is able to part her hair the other way and it's not very noticable. She has had minimal pain. Just mainly pain around the incision site. Amazing.
Now that the surgery is over, I can admit to my mother that I had a little meltdown the night before surgery. I was doing pretty good overall until then. My mind started filling with negative thoughts. I had a bad feeling about the surgery. I was terrified that my mom was going to wake up and be a vegetable or not know who I was. I tried thinking positive and praying but my negative thoughts got the best of me. I lost it. My mom is like a sister to me and the thought of her not knowing who I am and having to explain that to my children was almost too much to bear. I had to make a big glass of chocolate milk and watch Days of Our Lives to calm my mind.
I'm glad the scary surgery is done and she can move on with her life. Hopefully she won't be as forgetful now but I think she was forgetful before all of this started. :-)
Love you Mom!
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