Good News/Bad News

The Good News: Lizzie is out of surgery - she is struggling quite a bit with pain and all the tubes everywhere - she is a little freaked out. We are kind of wishing for her hallucinations to come back so she can be in la-la land and not be aware of what she's going through. She is crying a lot and refuses to take her pain meds until we threaten to give them to her by shot (we're mean, I know!) Although we are very comforted that she is awake and can communicate her pain and other things. She just talked on the phone with her brother and sister and was very lively and happy - Lortab will do that to a person!

The Bad News: Lizzie evidently suffered a brain hemorrhage in the last month. When they went in to put in the drainage tubes, they found a lot of blood mixed in with the spinal fluid and the surgeon said she had a hemorrhage, but it is not fresh blood, so he doesn't know how or why that happened. Usually they happen due to a trauma to the head. The only thing we can think of is that she fell out of bed a few weeks ago and maybe that caused it. The fluid and blood are quite thick and it may take more time than we thought to drain that off.

We now just sit and let the drains do the job getting the excess fluid from off her brain. Her brain has been under tremendous pressure, yet she hasn't complained of headaches. Her behavior has been strange lately though. She has been hitting a lot - she thinks it's playing, but it's really full on hard hitting. Right before surgery today she was playing with us and she whacked me really hard in the face with a doll a few times. It is not how she normally plays so hopefully these behaviors will go away as the pressure is relieved. We'll be here for a few days just letting the drains do their jobs and then the surgeon will re-evaluate things and determine if another shunt is needed. If so, then we'll be here another couple more days on top of that.

This visit feels so much different than last time. We are just tired of the drama I guess. We want Lizzie to be healthy and we thought she was headed in that direction - I guess that's why it's so depressing to be here this time around. We just want her to be able to progress. Which leads to this point. Today we were talking about surgery with Lizzie and she said, "I don't want any more surgeries...am I going to have to have any more after this?" I told her, "We don't know, Heavenly Father is in charge and He knows what will happen. She said, "Well, then we need to talk to Him and tell him we don't want anymore."

She has such faith and is so brave. Heavenly Father is in charge. I seem to have to be reminded of this over and over again because I'm such a take charge type of person. We have yet again felt the succor of our Savior and we know we'll get through this once again.