Day 75 update on Mark

Whoever came up with that saying, "One step forward, two steps backwards"..... THAT is an understatement!

Mark seemed to have a "decent" (for him) neuro exam at 6:30 yesterday morning for the neurosurgeon who came in to do rounds.   Pretty quickly after that he seemed to really decompensate pretty fast and would not respond at all.  This went on pretty much all day - he'd kind of respond one minute and then not respond for hours.   I kept telling the doctors that I felt like something was "off" with him.... something just did not feel right.  (above the normal "not feel right" feeling).

In the middle of the day he went down and had a feeding tube surgically placed in his abdomen.  This went pretty well.

Around 7:00pm or so last night he started running a very low grade fever so they were keeping an eye on that.  It started climbing around midnight and the cooling blanket went on him.  It still went up, so  blood cultures and every other culture imaginable was sent of to the lab and new IV antibiotics were started. 

Mark's neuro exams were still pretty unreliable through the night, this morning and this afternoon, so the doctors ordered for him to be hooked back up to EEG monitoring.  In the mean time they decided also to do a bronchoscopy to make sure his lungs were not full of infection (an unfortunate, but common problem for him). 

Mark was not even hooked up to the EEG for 45 minutes before the doctors were alerted to the fact that Mark is having some pretty major seizure activity and within 5 minutes an epileptologist (doctor specializing in seizures) was in the room  (I KNEW something felt off).  He does not have outward, noticeable seizures - his seizures are all in his brain, but they are pretty major.  They are now in the process of loading him up with medications to hopefully stop the seizures and then the doctors will find a medication(s) to control them.  Obviously the seizure medicine that he was on to prevent seizures was not working. 

A repeat CT scan was done yesterday morning after the changes in his responses was noted, but there was no worsening (thankfully) in the swelling or anything. 

We are still taking this journey one moment at a time, praying for peace, guidance, wisdom, and healing along the way.

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For all who have asked, there is a fund set up to help with Mark's medical bills, rehab, and the things he will need as he recovers.  The link is
http://www.gofundme.com/humphreysmedicalfund,   Donations can also be made via paypal under the email address of msh1236@gmail.com.  Thanks!