Day 629 - Feb 17, 2010

We are in a normal room now - out of ICU. Kevin has been doing very well, although he is in a lot of pain. No surprise there, I guess.

So it turns out that he wasn't leaking CSF as I had been told, but he was draining some of the infection from his head. We still don't know what bacteria has infected him as that can take up to 3 days. I sure hope it's just some minor bug and nothing hard to get rid of.

Unfortunately, that spot on the side of his forehead that I was worried about came wide open while he was in surgery. The neurosurgeon called in a plastic surgeon, but they decided not to worry about Kevin's appearance and just find a way to get it closed. This meant that they had to pull the skin taught from wherever they could pull it to get it to cover the large area. This means that he is unable to shut his left eye now and his skin is really tight.

My heart is just breaking for him.

One good thing (?) is that Kevin was nauseous late this afternoon and they gave him medication for it and it has knocked him on his butt. He has been sleeping for 6 hours already and I hope it continues through the night. We did have a couple bouts where he woke up completely out of it and we had to call the doc in, but she said it is a normal side effect to this medication. It just scared me because it was a blast from the horrible past.

I did take advantage of his sleep though and took a nice nap myself.

And I am going to quickly answer just a few questions and then read for a little while. First, to everyone - thanks for keeping my dad in your thoughts. He is doing somewhat ok, but it's going to be a rough road.

We also found out yesterday that they have indeed found a mass inside of my mother. She is going tomorrow for a biopsy.

And my sister and her husband were in a car accident the night before last. From what I hear, they are both ok.

Forget about 'when it rains it pours' - we are in the middle of a hurricane!

Jessica - you asked if Kevin has been on antibiotics for a while and the answer is yes - for 5 months now. We think it is partly why things weren't showing up on any blood work and tests that were done. He also had no 'real' signs of infection.

Hallie - you mentioned a functional MRI and if I remember correctly - you can't do an MRI on a patient with a shunt. I believe it throws the shunt out of whack, but that may not be the right reason.

There are a few more questions/comments, but most of them pertain to finding someone to spend time with Kevin. It's kind of a moot point right now, but I will say that because Kevin isn't as healthy as most of us, for now I was more looking for someone paid and insured for the trial run of this endeavor. Once I see that it works for Kevin to have someone come in, then I can go out into the community and have some kids or military personnel come in sometimes. As I said though - for now it's nothing we need to worry about. I think we are going to be here a good, long while.

And now I am going to leave you with a picture of Kevin from yesterday right after his surgery. He was much happier then because his pain was more managed.