10/29/10

Well, mad mama got some sleep and was able to take on the day. I spoke with the neurosurgery resident in the early a.m. and said I would like to speak with the neurosurgeon. He said he would do his best to get him up here to talk to me.

The residents all rounded and there was not much new to talk about. Matthew's vomiting, and inability isn't any better really, but at least we have a plan in place. We are going home with more medical paraphenelia than I know what to do with. We will be going home on some 2 new medications also, one for the vomiting, and also zyrtec to see if that helps with the amount of mucous (we are questioning allergies). We the hospitalist rounded, she was very surprised to see that Dr. P hadn't rounded. See Dr. P is a very good doctor, and a very busy doctor. But this was unlike him. She put a call into his office to say that we very much needed to speak with him before discharge.

Around 2 pm Dr. P came through. While I never got a straight answer as to why he didn't round any earlier than today, he gave me a good explanation of why he didn't think his cord was really tethered. It is a long explanation, and it has to do with gravity, and the way Matthew was laying in the MRI table, and the fact that the end of the nerves looked like they had some "slack" in them, and were not pulled tight, but rather just laying there. It's very hard to explain and put into words, especially when I had three nice diagrams drawn on the white board just to explain it. He says that he has never had one retether, and that it is virtually impossible, but he feels we should give it more time. He said patients such as Matthew can loose bladder function for a couple of months, and then regain it back. He is confident that since Matthew gained his ability to pee back so quickly after surgery, it should not be a problem again, but it takes time for the nerves to fully heal. He believes that as his bladder function comes back, his bowel function will follow suit.

So all in all, it sounds as if we will be cleared for discharge in the morning. We have a lot of teaching with new equipment to do, and we also need to get an EKG before we go home, as the new medication he is on can affect the heart (wonderful!..not really). I would guess it will be late afternoon, before we get back on the interstate and head for home, but oh, it will feel so good to be there.

The picture above is from this stay, and taken with my cell phone; and I have a few others that I need to take off my cell, but am too tired to do so right now. It will have to wait until another day :)