Monday, November 10th

Cindy in a more pensive mood

Hello Everyone,

Cindy was especially alert and "chipper" this morning when I arrived. She ate a big breakfast and was very talkative.  She still thinks she's been places and seen people she hasn't and thinks she needs to meet people and do things she doesn't.  Her memory is still very spotty and unpredictable with things coming and going from minute to minute, hour to hour, and day to day.  As usual, I left about noon to come home and do things.  Her Mom and aunt had come to the house at 9:00 to start cleaning and putting the house back in order after the chaos of the kitchen remodel.  When I got home, I was amazed at how much they had gotten done and how nice it looked.  Talk about a BIG help!  I spent most of my time painting baseboards that need to be put back in place and re-hanging the pictures they had cleaned.  At least the living room and breakfast room are back to normal now.  The two of them will be back tomorrow to work their magic on more rooms.

When I got home, they both took off to visit Cindy and, I suspect, spent a couple of hours with her.  I didn't get back over until about 4:30 on my way to my Monday night drawing class.  It took a while for them to let me into the ICU (you always have to check in and be let in) because her nurse was dealing with someone coming back from a CAT scan.  When I finally got in, it turned out that Cindy was the one she was dealing with.  It seems the doctors juggled her medications to see if one of them was causing the fever and high white cell count and came to the conclusion that she does have an infection.  Then the culture they took this morning from her cerebrospinal fluid came back positive for bacteria.  They took another culture to confirm the first result and the CAT scan was to see if she has an abscess in her brain.  (Last week they got a positive result on a cerebrospinal culture and the second one came up negative.)  I called to check on her after my class and no results were back yet on either the second culture or the CAT scan.  We'll have to wait until morning to see where she stands.  They have her on two powerful antibiotics that cross the blood-brain barrier just to be on the safe side and to nip anything that might be there in the bud.  All-in-all, not the greatest news.  The doctors won't even consider taking out the shunt until any infection has been cleared up.  On the bright side, her cerebrospinal drainage was very pale all day.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers and let's hope this is just a minor bump in the road.