Karen's Blog

Paul's Update: Monday, April 3rd at 10:40pm

The weekend seemed to drag on forever. Without work to keep me occupied it was all I could do not to think about Karen stuck in a hospital bed. Especially with the weather as nice as it was, and how she was so much looking forward to Spring's arrival.

Karen continues to make it through each day without any major problems. Saturday was particularly difficult though, since we saw very little activity. There wasn't much to report, and the Dr.s didn't provide much in the way of encouraging news.

Sunday, however was a completely different story. Karen's brother, Eric has flown into town from California and was there with Karen's mother and me for the later part of the afternoon. Karen had begun to open her eyes briefly several times during the day. While her eyes were opened she did not appear to focus, or track anything, but it was a very positive sign for all of us. Even the medical staff were encouraged. When we saw this happening we began speaking to her. We all agree that it seemed as though she knew we were there, yet she was frustrated that she wasn't able to communicate in anyway. This went on for about five or ten minutes while we were there, until she appeared to tire and go back to sleep.

Today, the nurse said she has been moving her arms on both sides more, andeven raised her right arm off of the bed once. These may seem like small and trivial things, but we'll take whatever we can at this point.

She continues to improve her breathing, and is generally breathing on herown with only slight assistance from the respirator. They are considering the possibility of taking her off the respirator sometime in the nextseveral days if she continues to grow stronger.

This is good progress, but they are still very cautious about the risk of spasms. They say that the spasm risk runs from about the 3rd to 5th day through the 10th to 14th day. So, we are looking at as late as next Sunday before we are through this very critical period.

That's about all I have to add at this time, but I wanted to take a momentto reinforce what I have tried to express in my earlier posts. Karen isextremely sick. Even with the events of this weekend and today, she has along, long way to go and she is not by any stretch of the imagination out ofthe woods. Even if we assume that there are no setbacks - and there will besome, Karen is looking at spending two to three months in the hospital.Then, if all goes well, she will likely need a very long time for rehabilitation.

Karen has beaten a lot of the odds up to this point. Frankly, very few individuals in her position ever make it to the hospital alive, much less past the first week. We are thankful that she is still with us and fighting. We are not surprised that she continues to fight hard. She does however, have many tough battles ahead of her.

My goal in saying this is to make certain everyone fully understands the severity of Karen's situation. If you haven't yet gone to the links for theBrain Aneurysm Foundation I would encourage you to do so.

posted by Karen's Blog @ Tuesday, April 04, 2006