So, Helen came home from the hospital two weeks ago.
She is recovering slowly, she is still feeling very dizzy and weak, and she is taking a lot of steroids to reduce the swelling in the brain, and the side effect of these are to break down the muscles, so she is losing a lot of strength and can only walk with the aid of a walking chair.
So she is spending most of her time in bed, sleeping, and getting me to fetch things for her :)
Helens mother has stayed her with us all this time and she is great help with everything.
Helen father will come here tomorrow, and so will Helens brother Matt from Cape town, and we will all spend christmas together, so that will be very nice :)
Next week we'll meet the oncologist to plan for the radtation treatment.
I read in the newspaper about the snow and the cold in Europe, and here we are having 30+ most days :)
But I miss the cold and the darkness, the real Christmas atmosphere :)
Anyways, Merry Christmas to all of you!
Take care!
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Thursday 3 December 2009
Helen is improving
Helen is improving steadily :)
Yesterday afternoon they moved her from the intensive care unit (ICU) back to the normal ward. She is still very swollen, but not in very much pain.
The surgeon has told Helen that she could be allowed to leave the hospital and come home already next Tuesday.
Later today we should be getting the laboratory-results of the analysis of the tissue that was removed in the operation.
And Helen asked me to send thanks to all of you who are following this and for all the well-wishes she has been receiving. *Hugs*
Yesterday afternoon they moved her from the intensive care unit (ICU) back to the normal ward. She is still very swollen, but not in very much pain.
The surgeon has told Helen that she could be allowed to leave the hospital and come home already next Tuesday.
Later today we should be getting the laboratory-results of the analysis of the tissue that was removed in the operation.
And Helen asked me to send thanks to all of you who are following this and for all the well-wishes she has been receiving. *Hugs*
Wednesday 2 December 2009
A long day
This morning I was at the hospital at 8, so I could talk a little bit more to Helen before the surgery. She had already gotten a mild sedative and was starting to get drowsy.
At 9.20 they rolled her away into the operating theatre.
The neuro surgeon had told us that if the surgery went without complications it would take 2 1/2 - 3 hours.
So I waited, with Helen's parents and her aunt Cooks, and it is such a difficult wait.
Lots of terrible worrying, a desire to have this over and done with, you don't want the operation to take much longer than anticipated, but you also don't want to see the surgeon come towards you much earlier than expected.
In the end the operation took only just over 2 hours, there was very little bleeding, and they managed to find the affected area easily. They got a sample of the central tumour, and the removed some of the surrounding swelling that were interfering with the nerve leading to the left side of Helen's face. In a few days we'll get the results of the testing of that tissue, and then we should maybe also start to see if some of the symptoms are reduced.
And then we'll see if they want to do any further surgery, or whether radiation will be the next step.
About an half hour after the operation ended they let us in to see Helen for a few moments. She was awake, but quite drowsy. They had to cut through her muscles in the back of the head which means lots of pain after the surgery, so they were giving her great amounts of pain killers.
Helen's mother took the below picture
After that we went home, and I had a great long nap, I haven't slept that well in a long time.
In about an hour we'll go back to the hospital and see her again :)
At 9.20 they rolled her away into the operating theatre.
The neuro surgeon had told us that if the surgery went without complications it would take 2 1/2 - 3 hours.
So I waited, with Helen's parents and her aunt Cooks, and it is such a difficult wait.
Lots of terrible worrying, a desire to have this over and done with, you don't want the operation to take much longer than anticipated, but you also don't want to see the surgeon come towards you much earlier than expected.
In the end the operation took only just over 2 hours, there was very little bleeding, and they managed to find the affected area easily. They got a sample of the central tumour, and the removed some of the surrounding swelling that were interfering with the nerve leading to the left side of Helen's face. In a few days we'll get the results of the testing of that tissue, and then we should maybe also start to see if some of the symptoms are reduced.
And then we'll see if they want to do any further surgery, or whether radiation will be the next step.
About an half hour after the operation ended they let us in to see Helen for a few moments. She was awake, but quite drowsy. They had to cut through her muscles in the back of the head which means lots of pain after the surgery, so they were giving her great amounts of pain killers.
Helen's mother took the below picture
After that we went home, and I had a great long nap, I haven't slept that well in a long time.In about an hour we'll go back to the hospital and see her again :)
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