Recovery

#1 came through the second surgery absolutely fine.  Her resection began late Thursday afternoon (May 8) and lasted only five hours, which was much better than the eight hour time frame they gave us.  The surgeon was hopeful that even though they could not remove each spot that seizure activity begins from, they got the two largest areas and he is positive that even if she still has some residual seizure activity it will be much better controlled and that we have improved her chances for a better quality of life. As it stands now, she went into this taking four different anti-seizure medications and is currently only on one. Woo!!

The even better news is that since the day after her second surgery, she has been consistently awake, coherent, and cognizant.  As a result, we have a much better idea of her functioning.  The physicians expected her to lose some peripheral vision, however, she has all of her peripheral, it's just a little "off" and it is believe that it will resolve itself over a few weeks' time.  Additionally, they expected her to need significant physical therapy due to a loss of left-side function, but she has been up and walking and working with the in-house physical therapy team and they have only deemed it necessary to order light PT/OT on an out-patient basis due to a small lack of coordination, not gross loss of function.  She has had four seizures since coming out of the resection surgery, however, her neurology team has assured us that this is normal under the circumstances and is in no way an indicator of a lack of success of the procedure.  She could actually have seizures for nearly 3-4 weeks afterwards, but due to the surgery itself and not the epilepsy.  We have also noticed that the tone of her seizures has changed -- and seemingly for the better.  They do not last nearly as long and she rarely loses complete consciousness with them and regains her strength and alertness immediately afterwards.

We were discharged on Mother's Day (what a great gift!!) and she has been recovering really well at home. This was MUCH sooner than the 2-3 week hospital stay we were told to initially anticipate for these surgeries.  God is good and I see a great life ahead for my baby!!