I've been meaning to get an update out since before Thanksgiving, but just haven't taken the time to do it. We had a minor milestone today, though, so it seems like as good a time as any. Today was her first follow-up visit with neurosurgery at UNC Hospital.
Last time on "The Bold and the Tumorless", Bobbie had just had her sutures removed, was weaning off of her steroids (her sleeping patterns were improving as a result) and she had managed to free herself from Percocet. Since then, she has remained Percocet and suture free and had managed to stop needing Ambien, but when she was finally completely off the steroids, she started having some headaches and began to get really sleepy throughout the day. A call to the docs ended with her being bumped back up to her full regimen of steroids which helped with both the headaches as well as the exceptional fatigue. Sleep patterns, however, were back to minimal and Ambien was back in the mix. Otherwise, her recovery has continued to carry along very well.
As of today's visit to the neurosurgeon, it was pretty much all good news. He introduced another step-down plan for the steroids, so she should be back off of them in 12 days. He reminded us that she had brain surgery less than a month ago and that even though her recovery is moving along nicely, some sleepiness/napping is to be expected, but that by the time these steroids are weaned, she'll be another 3 weeks down recovery road from where she was last time and he doesn't expect that she will experience quite as much fatigue at that time. In addition, she was given the green light to drive again as long as she & I felt comfortable that she was good to do so. No legal restrictions were in place since she had not experienced a seizure that had resulted in loss of consciousness (or any seizure for that matter). Much celebration was had by Bobbie that she is good to go again with driving. Funny how you miss the little things, but I guess it would be frustrating to have to rely on others to get you where you need to go and she has been doing so for well over a month now as she couldn't drive for almost 3 weeks before surgery as well. Other than that, he said that the incision looked great. Her vision and motor skills checked out as well.
From here, the next step is that she will have an MRI on January 5 followed by an MRI every 2 months for awhile, then every 4 months, then every 6 months and I think eventually annually. She will be on her anti-seizure medication until that Jan 5 appointment, but will probably discontinue it at that time.
As mentioned before, Bobbie is open for contact by phone, visit or email, so this is likely the last update I will send out until her next MRI barring any significant news. I thank you all again for your interest and words of comfort and inspiration along the way. It has been therapeutic for me to be able to communicate to you all in this fashion and has saved me from having to tell the same stories over many times - both good news and bad.
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