Damm Headaches

Well, things went better with Kathy today. We got her medication organized so she could keep ahead of daily events. It seems to be working. When she is sitting or lying down the headaches have been manageable. But as soon as she gets up or moves an extremely strong pain grabs her. It seems as long as she holds a position she is OK?

We are in the process of deciding what to do with her shunt. As described above the shunt is not working as expected. She shows all signs of low pressure-headaches and nausea. But is it? It could be the difference in atmospheric pressure between her head and her drain in the stomach? The shunt may be malfunctioning? Is the valve type and design making a difference? Why me?

We went over the options today and Kathy is thinking she might wait out the surgery until she gets more information. What kind of shunt does she now have? What kind of shunt is Dr. Kureshi going to implant? How much, if any improvement is it going to make? Can her brain get “pressurized” at its current state and she starts feeling better? How does she minimize the complications? All good questions! We hope to get the answers before Kathy makes the next step.

Tomorrow Kathy has appointments with her infectious disease doctor and foot doctor. Her appointment with the infectious disease doctor is a final out patient visit to go over and get his suggestions to keep Kathy safe. Her foot doctor should remove and replace her casts with smaller ones. She can’t wait.

Hopefully everything will go great tomorrow and build up her confidence and strength. As each day goes by successfully we can build a baseline for her daily condition and be able to monitor it more accurately over time. We just hope Kathy is in the group of people who make up the largest group of shunt recipients, happy customers. Keep up your prayers please; we got a lot of time on this movie before it’s over!