Day 5: Progress

Ronda had a really good wakeful morning. She responded well to all her morning checks. She said she could see and said she knew who I was. She said she was not in pain and not experiencing any discomfort but she seems to be experiencing some significant short-term memory deficiencies. A series of yes/no questions lead me to believe she doesn't remember anything post-op.

She remembered she had cancer and was relieved the surgery went well. She didn't know where she was or why. She doesn't remember seeing Mike here or doing physical therapy yesterday. She looked very worried that she had a stroke and brain surgery even though we remind her often. I don’t expect this to be permanent but for now, she isn’t holding on to new information for very long. I talked to her about all of the encouragement her family has been sending her and she gave me a HUGE grin. She also smiled big when I talked about a granddaughter that might be Ronda's #1 fan. Or at least a close second after Mike.

Ronda still cannot speak due to the ventilator placement. We won’t know how the stroke may have affected her speech until the vent comes out. In the meantime, Ronda is figuring out more ways to communicate with her hands. She can give a thumbs up in answer to a question and also a "so-so" motion. She can wave hello and goodbye at the appropriate times. Anyone who knows Ronda knows that she normally talks with her hands, even without realizing it, so she’s had lots of practice for this!

She passed all her neuro tests and physical therapy exercises today with flying colors. She held both arms up high for 10 seconds and both legs. Her strength is increasing on her left and she's opening her left eye with effort. Today’s CT scan looked great. The swelling in her brain has gone way down and the bleed is basically gone.

The biggest news of the day is that all her doctors agree that she’s almost ready to be extubated (taken off the ventilator). They would do it today except they want to do another, more detailed scan tomorrow (CT Angiogram) to see if they can identify any cause for the stroke. This scan requires sedation so they want to leave the ventilator on until then.

Finally, we are learning more about how things may continue to progress. She needs three things to graduate from the ICU floor:

1. She needs to be off the ventilator

2. She needs stable blood pressure without continuous IV medication.

3. She needs to be off the continuous IV medication that keeps her swelling down.

We are making progress on all of the above. When those get checked off she will get to move to the step-down unit and then after that in-patient neurological rehab. We’re feeling really hopeful that her doctors are already talking about making plans for rehab. They are feeling confident in her progress!