18 Days in Hospital

By my calculus, it’s our 18th day here, but hopefully Adam will leave in the next day or two.

Since my last update, it’s been a stretch of recovery for Adam: general progress, but with a number of smaller challenges or setbacks. He moved to the general pediatric ward last week. For a period of time, he was quite weak on his left side, and couldn’t look to that side; later, he had some small seizures. Most recently, he went through a day or so where he said little if anything original: instead, his speech was a continuous, inconsolable, series of phrases that had little connection to the situation or his desires (e.g. “Mommy lie down with me”). He also has a big bubble of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) under the sutured area of his scalp.

However, his physical tests (MRI & EEG) look good and his surgeons don’t think that he needs a shunt implanted to keep his pressure under control. He’s doing pretty well; neurology & neurosurgery are ready to discharge him. He’s eating well. He’s using both sides of his body (for example, he will eat with a fork using his left hand). He’s a lot less uncomfortable than he was a few days ago, although he’s still apparently pretty tired of being in the hospital.

The final pathology on his tumor came back, and it confirmed the good news that it’s not malignant; they’ll have another doctor give a second opinion as a triple-check, but we’re confident that it was a “benign” tumor, which is great news.

Before	After
(yes, that cauliflower blob is the tumor)

If life wasn’t complex enough, our au pair, Tabata, woke us at 3:30 last Sunday morning with bad abdominal pains; Laura took her to the emergency room, and that evening, she had her gallbladder removed. Thankfully, it’s a pretty straightforward operation (laparoscopic), she came home the next night, and she’s up & around now, although still regaining her energy. Also, a virus has swept through the family; it had me in bed for 24 hours and slowed me down for a few days; now, Laura is recuperating from her bout with it.

The current plan is that he’ll go from here in the hospital to an inpatient rehab facility, so he can get intensive physical therapy. We don’t yet know where (we’re hoping to go to one here in Manhattan associated with NYU, the Rusk Institute, but we’re not sure if we’re going to get a bed there), nor do we have any good idea how long he might be there (an offhand guess from a doctor here was 2-6 weeks).

So, it’s pretty challenging, but Adam’s improving. We have much to be thankful for.