Saturday

Christopher is doing well overall. His goals for the day are: 1. Tolerate Eating (Eat Something) 2. Walk/Play 3. No Pain They took off his bandage...it was stapled to his head, and then there was a bandage holding it on at the base of his skull on his neck. He cried of course. The worst was the bandage...the staples weren't near as bad as the tape.

The incisions look good...meaning they don't appear to be infected. There are 2 of them; with one being just over 3 inches long and the other being about an inch and a half or so long. They are starting at the top of his neck going up to his skull and then shorter one is above that. The shorter one is where they cut to get part of the Dura (sp?) to graph it to his Cerebelum that they cut off. They cut off the lower part of his Cerebelum that was being herniated. I found out the 15mm Chiari Malformation is actually meaning that 15mm of his Cerebelum was being pushed down into his neck out of his skull down into/around his spinal cord. That is why one side was completely blocked off and the other side ended up being wrapped around his spinal cord. Those 2 factors made his surgery much more complicated the Neurosurgeon said. The MRI that was taken on Wednesday also confirmed that he does have Hydromyelia. This is an abnormal widening of the central canal of the spinal cord that creates a cavity in which cerebrospinal fluid (commonly known as spinal fluid) can accumulate. The Neurosurgeon said that we will have to watch and see how he does, and if it worsens he will have to have surgery again to put in shunts to help it drain. Hopefully it won't come to that.

He also had an EKG today due to his heart rate being low sometimes. It has dropped down to 54, so that's why the EKG was done. We won't have those results till tomorrow. His normal heart rate prior to surgery was 90-100, and a little lower when sleeping.

He has refused to take oral medicines...he said he's tired of taking them. I told him that if he didn't take it that he had to sit up and move his head to show us that he didn't need it....so he did. LOL He's doing good, but could be a little better. Please continue to pray.