Friday, March 16, 2012

road to recovery is slow going

Spoke to the neurologist this morning about yesterday's tests. Results of the SSE show that there is some connections in his arms, but it didn't show too much in his legs, at least for now; however, he said that Mark's legs are really tight right now that can explain the readings. The MRI does show that there is some damage to the right side of his brain; however, it does not show a major damage that is not healable like what you would see from a stroke. Because his brain now has damage on the right as a result of his code AND his brain has damage on the left that is trying to heal from surgery, his body is really trying to repair itself which is why he is not jumping right up to tell us jokes! Add on top of that his body is ALSO dealing with the pulmonary embolism in his lungs...his body has to fight exponentially hard! We are continuing the heprin drip to control the clot in the lungs while Mark's body buckles down to heal his head. The doctor's goal is to have him continue to rest and repair, remain stable over the weekend and the next milestone is to see how he is doing in days 7-10...in his words, "we're ONLY at day 5." He also exclaimed that from what he sees in the brain scan, the damage he sees there he would not label as terminal. We'll continue to see what more we can learn today

Here's an unexpected surprise. My brother-in-law did a search on Mark's name and we found this video piece that was recorded a few months ago. Funny thing is, none of us have ever seen it...including Mark!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F94s8Tmxpm4

Also, here's an article we dug up as well:
http://articles.hbindependent.com/2008-05-07/features/hbi-pace050808_1_brain-cancer-life-expectancy-team-pace