Category: Brain

I’m HOME!!!!! Yes!!! I don’t need confetti or balloons, I am just so thankful they let me come home. It was as romantic as I envisioned. My handsome husband, all my babies in our home. Safe. I feel protected. We were spoiled with a delicious meal, thank you Amy! Mamabird stayed for a couple hours to help me bathe and stop smelling like a dumpster. (Baby wipe showers DON’T WORK) Last night, the dr. made his rounds, we said goodnight, and I’ll give you 5 guesses as to what started leaking. Yep. I immediately did what all normal girls do: cry. I wanted to pound my fists in despair, but decided to pray. And eat my chocolate stash. I told the nurse and she grabbed the Dr. He restapled my head again, and said ‘we will see’. After that, I leaked a few drops, but not enough to dissuade him from letting me come home. Thank you Lord!!! Huge praise. He said I have what is called hydrocephalus, which is when one makes too much cerebral spinal fluid in the brain. This is a complication from surgery that we have to pray resolves itself. Or I will ultimately have to have a shunt put in. Please pray it will heal completely? The deal is I can be home as long as there is no leak, if there is a leak, I go back. My brain and heart needs a break. God already knows this. The amazing part of riding these trials is knowing God saw the entirety of the trial before we did. And He sees the next round to come. He can be trusted. He never forsakes us. And you know what? Through all this, I never once felt alone. Thank you friends for showering us with prayer, cards and encouragement. Thank you for caring for our children tirelessly. The joy and gratitude you have all brought me supercedes the silly tears. I appreciate each one of you. I am so excited to go back and read all of your messages and pray for you. Please thank God in your prayers today as He has done so much good, answered countless prayers and given me peace through it all. Dancing my happy dance…

Oh sweet praying friends. I am so humbled by your continuous outpouring of prayers and love for our family. I check messages, or have them read to me, and am overcome by the love and the time and thoughtfulness that has gone into blessing this family. Your prayers have not been offered up in vain. God is beginning to answer each prayer and petition one by one. Last night was day 5 (and the last day) of the expected time frame for the fluid to rebuild itself. If I did not start to feel better on this day it would have meant they punctured the spinal column which would be months of recovery. I am so pleased to announce I sat up for the first time last night without screaming in pain. They removed the drain tube. And staples and sutures. Not. One. Tear. My head is still attached to my shoulders. They sent some fluid off to be tested for meningitis. I have had consistent temps in the 99.1-99.8 range. No one is too concerned, so that is a good thing. Please pray that I would recover so quickly I would have the chance to point everyone back to the gracious nature of our faithful God.
This last week has been the most frightening of my entire life. Having pain escalate to the highest degree imaginable, too high for tears, and not responding to the highest doses of narcotics was terrifying. Highest praises go to our Lord and Savior who has heard all your loving prayers for deliverance. I am on the upswing. I am only able to sit up for about 20
minutes at a time before feeling like I am on the teacups. The doctors hope to send me home in the next couple of days but I need to be able to use a walker to get around like I was before. Which will be hard as I have been bed bound for 7 days unable to move anything. Hopefully by tomorrow, I can begin recovering at home! Thank you praying friends for taking the time to say a prayer on my behalf. God heard you, and He is responding. Please don’t stop praying. I have a long road ahead.

Thank you ALL for sharing this blog and for praying for me and begging for prayer on my behalf. I am beyond humbled and so full of gratitude. There is no way I can physically respond to all the loving FB messages, writing this alone has me in so much pain. We feel loved by all the many prayers. Prayer warriors: Please keep it up. It’s been a hard 3 days filled with physical pain. Much uncertainty. Praise God for modern medicine. I can’t remember what I have shared. In short, I had too much csf fluid, and it began leaking out of my staples, (Dangerous), so they placed a drain. (Didn’t work- valve failed). The drain malfunctioned, and I lost almost ALL my spinal fluid which creates what is called a low pressure headache. Highly painful. In fact, in all of my intimate knowledge of pain, this is the highest form. As of yesterday I was still lacking enough spinal fluid to sit upright and move around. Changing positions is desperately painful. I am maxed out on pain medicine, yet so thankful FOR pain medicine and kind doctors and nurses. I am currently in the ICU awaiting a CT scan as the pain has not subsided, and guess what is leaking again? Ding, ding, ding !!! My wound. Please pray for relief, an that my brain is ok. There is a lot going on and I am not getting a straight answer. I am in much pain and am begging God for deliverance. God has mercifully gotten me this far. Thank you prayer warriors.

I am feeling pretty embarrassed with all the updates. I am sorry for consuming your news feeds and updating so often. That being said, things are pretty serious, and the one constant comfort I have is knowing I can beg God for deliverance through prayer and true and complete dependence on Him. Knowing I have exhausted the resource of prayer, brings me the peace I need to press on. Two things: one, I was informed the type of infection I am at risk for is meningitis. The life threatening kind. To say I am disappointed in my surgeons communication skills is the understatement of the year. Second, there was a major complication with the placing of the drain-the control valve failed and I lost a very large amount of spinal fluid. Along with the additional leak comes yet another pathway for meningitis, and I spent the night in tremendous, uncontrollable pain, the worst headache and backache I have ever had. It is still not draining properly, and I have been warned, they will most likely redo the drain today. With anesthesia, which means recovery starts alllll over again. Considering the new additional risk factors and pain ahead, I am discouraged. I will not lose heart and I resolve to continue to trust in Gods sovereign nature. Thank you for praying! Thank you for your notes of encouragement. I can’t get back to everyone but I appreciate it all the same.