Tuesday, November 11th

Cindy engaged in one of her favorite pastimes

Hello everyone,

Well, what seemed like rather discouraging news late yesterday turned out to be a false alarm.  Both the CAT scan and the second culture from Cindy's cerebrospinal fluid came up negative...no abscess and no bacteria in her brain.  The doctors concluded that the bacteria that had shown up must be growing in the tube that the drain from her head connects to, so they replaced it with a new one this afternoon. Problem solved.  Her cerebrospinal fluid also cleared up enough that they began "challenging" her brain today by cutting off the siphon action.  Every indication so far is that her brain is absorbing the fluid as it should.  If it wasn't, one of the first symptoms would be headaches and she hasn't had any since the process began.  She'll go in for another CAT scan first thing in the morning and if everything looks good, I think the plan is to take out the drain tomorrow.  Woo-hoo!

She slept most of the morning (the whole time I was there and most of the time her Dad and Colleen were there around lunchtime), but by early afternoon when her Mom and aunt went by, she was awake and talkative.  They had spent the morning cleaning up the house some more before they went over to see her.  They've really been lifesavers in that regard; very "merry maids", as it were (and fast and thorough, too!).

When I got back over there at about 5:00, she was awake, alert and talkative.  I took her some matzo ball soup and cookies that some good friends had made for her.  She ate a GREAT big bowl of the soup (she'd had it before and loved it) before eating a big dinner.  Then she ate several of the cookies, as well, commenting all the while on how good they were.  Better yet, she remembered having the soup before and the friends that made it.  That was striking in that the friends are relatively new and the previous partaking of the soup rather recent. Another hint that her memory is slowly coming back.  (Thanks Yvonne and Jenny!).

Colleen and Ernie came by about 7:00, as usual, and Cindy just chatted away until we all left around 9:00.  Although we never overtly commented on it, I think we all felt like she was more "with it".  Her memory is still off, but now she seems to be aware that it's off and that's a striking change.  We were even joking with her that the has to remember that she forgets...and she seemed to get the joke.  She's also asking for the details of what has happened and can remember that she had an aneurism burst in her brain.  It's really very encouraging.

Please continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers so we can keep her on this track.