Roller Coaster Ride

Where do I even begin! The last three days have been spent at the hospital with my family as my Aunt Vicky (my dad's sister) has been on a roller coaster ride for the past ten days. She was admitted into ICU on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010, and diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. By Saturday she was doing much better, up walking and talking. They were even talking about sending her home with an IV while doing home health care. That all changed Sunday evening as she rapidly deterioted and doctors had no answers. On Monday, she was placed back in ICU and was unresponsive with no movement on the right side of her body. Evidence pointed to a stroke; however, doctors were very reluctant to say that was what it was as MRI's and other tests were not revealing that. On Thursday things progressively went downhill and she began having seizures. By seven o'clock they were continous and the medicines were not slowing them down. They decided to do a CT scan believing that there was fluid building up in the mastoid (the bone behind the ear). Doctors immediately decided that they needed to open up the brain and put a tube in her ear to allow for the swelling of the brain and drainage of fluid. This became a very immediate and urgent situation. Surgery didn't get over until midnight and we were all back here yesterday very early. As yesterday continued, so did the seizures! At seven, (again) they decided they needed to another surgery for this morning. Because the medicine is not making the seizures stop and they have given her the most that they can, they have now had to place her in a medically induced state to give her some rest. If they would let this seizures continue at the pace and rate that they were they were going to risk permanent brain damage. As we sit in the waiting room, we ask for prayers and peace for my Aunt and our family. This roller coaster ride continues to seem to be going down instead of up. We are hopeful that today's surgery will help the infection spread so that the antibiotics can do their thing and heal Vicky. We need a positive break after a long week of lots of negatives. Thank you for thinking of us during this stressful time.