Lazy Saturday

It's been a slow day today here at UC other than a few surprise
visitors today. Earlier this morning, Erica and I thought it would be
a good idea to bring the kids in, so I bundled them up and drove them
in. Though Karyn is unable to speak right now, she was noticeably
happy to see them....it had been nearly 3 weeks since she has seen
them---imagine not seeing your kids for 3 weeks.

After about a half hour stay, Lieneka seemed like she had better
things to do, and Auntie Erica was ready to take them to the mall to
shop. Aidan said he would miss me but I assured him that 5pm was not
that far away.

Health-wise, it appears that Karyn is clear of all infections and the
positive result for yeast was due to a contaminated specimen (whew).
Her leg swelling appears to be going down which is good as it means
that the clot is working its way out. She is still having great
difficulty speaking and doesn't say more than one or two words a day.
As you can imagine, this is really hard to witness because you can
see her in there looking at you, you can feel her thinking thoughts,
but nothing comes out. This is probably the most horrific thing you
could ever go through, and here we are going through it. There isn't
a day that goes by where I don't dream of a time when everything was
normal....when the toughest things I knew now look like heaven.

Have a good weekend.... enjoy every moment.

~Julian

Wednesday Report

Not much new news today but a few things worth mentioning.

A CT Scan yesterday revealed that one of Karyn's ventricles is
collapsed, something that has been suspected for some time now. This
will be dealt with when the shunt(s) go in.

Dr. Hoffman came by today from the Plastic Surgery team and evaluated
Karyn's wound. There is a very slight amount of seepage so Dr. Parsa
enlisted Dr. Hoffman to see if there's anything they can do to aid
the wound in healing. The three options are re-closing with more
stitches, light surgery to create a little more "slack" in the skin
so it is not so stretched and finally (and least-likely right now)
microsurgery to close the wound using grafts. Since the wound is
looking better this week (over last week when he first visited), we
may just opt for the more efficient closing of the area in question.

Still no cultures in the latest round of samples, so it appears that
the infection is no longer an issue. The one positive yeast reading
is looking more and more like it was a contaminated sample since
there were clean results both before and after the Positive sample.

The blood clot in Karyn's right leg appears to be clearing as the
swelling is now going down. My guess is that by the week's end her
leg should be back to normal, let's hope that my guess is right.

The big issue for me right now is the her mental status. She is
definitely aware of us being there, she recognizes me and all the
people that visit, she knows where she is and, with some coaxing, she
will speak. I get the feeling that she is completely present but
there is a layer between her and the outside world that is preventing
normal communication. The doctors are not entirely sure what is
causing this nor will they guess how long they think it will last.
Some of the theories include effects from the antibiotics, the dead
infection in the brain and fatigue. Hopefully I will get more
information on this soon. While it is nice to be able to spend time
with her each afternoon, I really miss being able to talk to her
about things going on outside the hospital, hopefully that will
resume again soon......

Also, thank you for all the emails and phone calls. I appreciate all
of your votes of confidence and it really helps to know that everyone
is out there even though it seems like we never see each other any
more. I know that will change soon....

~Julian

Mixed Reviews

I had a few talks with different members of the team today and here
is a short update.

First of all, the samples that have been taken over the last 6 or 7
days have all failed to grow any organisms, so it would appear that
the three main infections have been eliminated. What is not so good
is that some of the samples turned up positive for yeast. We are
hoping that this is due to a contaminated sample, something that we
should know really soon.

Another area of concern is that Karyn's ventricles are not
communicating, something Dr. Parsa had noted a few weeks back but was
not yet concerned about. This impacts the shunt as it is right in the
area of the ventricles. There is a surgery that can be performed to
correct the lack of communication by essentially converting them to
be one open system. Dr. Parsa was concerned about this surgery for
Karyn though given her weakened state, the amount of surgeries she's
had and the fact that she is not healing well following the
radiation. Along these lines, her main incision is another area of
concern as it is not healing as it should be. To aid with this, Dr.
Parsa has enlisted the help of the plastic surgery group who have a
few different ways they can attempt to correct this.

It is not necessary to say, but our dear sweet Karyn is quite sick
right now. Aside from all the above-mentioned ailments, there are
other physical problems such as the blood clot in her right leg, the
severe kink in her neck and her extreme fatigue. Those of you who
have visited her know that she is quite distant and is not able to
say much right now. I know she is in there though, and I know she is
greatly helped by seeing our familiar faces.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring some good news, Karyn sure deserves it.

~Julian

Not much change

Sorry for the lack of updates....but we are still waiting to hear
definitive news on the cultures. Once we have this information we
will know how and when they want to proceed. For the time being
though, Karyn's condition has not changed much. She is still quite
fatigued but the physical therapists have begun to get her out of bed
and into a chair on a daily basis.

I will be there again this afternoon and will hopefully have more
news to share....

~Julian