Highlights
- Assisted Breathing
- Swollen From Surgery
- Left Side Movement
- Feeding Tube
- Two draining tubes out
- Shower
- Somewhat responsive
- The fight with blood pressure begins
Assisted Breathing
Lidia has a breathing tube in and is hooked up to a respirator machine. I’ve been told that the machine currently it is helping her breath but not doing it for her. She’s assisted. When she misses a breath, the michine takes over. You could see on the screen when the michine is doing the work and when she is doing the work. Technology is quite amazing.
Swollen From Surgery
The left side of Lidia’s face is swollen from surgery. The following image shows just how swollen. More images to follow later on as we follow her progression.
Left Side Movement
We have movement on her left side after surgery!! Did you know that the left side of the brain controls the movement on the right side of your body and vise versa. It is pretty amazing how the brain and body work. Because the hemorrhagic stroke occurred on her left hand side of her brain, her right hand side’s motor functions are affected. She can feel pain, but is unable to move her right arm, hand, leg or foot on command. Also, our primary speech functions occur within the left side of the brain as well.
Feeding Tube
A feeding tube was placed today. It was done once, then she coughed and it had to be redone. I asked the nurse if she had every had a feeding tube placed, and she said that she had during her medical training. They had to practice on each other apparently. She said the tube the was used on Lidia is much more comfortable to use than the tubes that they were trained with and used on themselves.
Lidia is now being fed through the tube. She hasn’t eaten anything sinch pancakes on Thanksgiving day. That’s quite the diet.
Two Draining Tubes Out
Lidia had a total of three drainage tubes placed when they had her skull open to drain the blood. Two of the drainage tubes were no long draining anything so our surgeon had them removed. Below is a gross picture of the top of her skull the day after surgery with the drainage tubes still inserted.
Shower
I stink. When this all happened on Thursday, I had been working in the garage on. It is now Saturday. I feel dirty. So I went home, took a shower and came right back up to the hospital.
Somewhat Responsive
She can move her left hand on command but slowly. She’s able to open her eyes and can focus on you but gets lost when she trys to follow your finger. It’s heartbreaking to see.
The Fight With Bloodpressure Begins
It may not be common knowledge (it wasn’t for me) that high blood pressure is the primary cause of hemorrhagic strokes. So, it is the goal of the doctors that Lidia’s blook pressure during the healing process must remain below 140. What a struggle. At this point, everything caused her to have high blood pressure. Pain, discomfort, disorientation, etc are all contributing factors. It became a problem so she was order some medication to help combat the high blood pressure.