Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Surgery Ends

Ben's surgery ended just short of 5 hours after we left him. His Dr. said everything went well. Ben is in the Pediatric ICU right now, and he feels pretty crappy. He is very nauseous, and (duh!) his head hurts. Hopefully that will improve tonight. If he is feeling better tomorrow, he can move into a more comfortable room in Neuroscience.

And we can't have our cell phones on in the PICU, so no calls from us tonight.

Surgery Begins


Ben went into surgery this morning around 11:30. The Dr. says it will take around 5 hours. The picture is of the markings the surgeon made on Ben's head before he went into surgery. You can see the purple marks go from his ear, up and around like a backwards "C". I think the "K" stands for whoever is the most awesome mom at the hospital.

Before the surgery, Ben had a little medicine to make him really relaxed. It also made him a little confused. The nurse asked him when the last time he had anything to eat of drink, and he replied, "Well . . .I had some Sprite at 7. And I had some water at 6:50. And I had some Sprite at 6:40." I was cracking up at his minute by minute replay of his morning.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Monday

On Monday Ben will have some blood work done at the hospital in preparation for the surgery. Thankfully for me, Ben has never been afraid of needles. He is a brave guy. Also, on Monday we'll find out what time the surgery will be on Tuesday. The hospital told us that they schedule surgeries from the youngest child to the oldest, so I'm guessing we'll be later rather than earlier.

Monday will also be Ben's last day at school for 4-6 weeks. He will have attended 4 whole days of jr. high. Wow! Just think of all the money we'll save on school lunches!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Schedule

Here is Ben's surgery schedule. His brain surgery is a two-stage procedure, with the two surgeries tentatively scheduled a week apart.

Tuesday, August 31 - 1st surgery to place electrodes on his brain. This is so the Dr.'s can map his brain, determining specifically where in his brain his memory and language functions are. This mapping will take approximately one week and it will take place in the hospital. After this is done . . .

Tuesday, September 7 - 2nd surgery to remove the abnormal brain tissue (bye-bye left hippocampus!) that has been causing Ben's seizures. The electrodes from the mapping will also be removed. Recovery from this surgery is expected to be 5-7 days in the hospital, and another 2-4 weeks at home.

Epilepsy.com has some pretty easy to understand information on brain mapping and surgery if you want to read more. Click Here

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

My Son Made Me Start this Blog

Well, not literally. But I thought a blog might be in order for those wanting to keep up with Ben's upcoming brain surgery. This blog will only be about Ben, and his medical issues. Failure to mention other members of the family on the blog is in no way indicative of the amount of love and attention they receive in our family.