Day 4 – Her spark is back!

It started off as a small spark but as the day went on I could tell she was getting more and more sparky. It was another busy and stellar day! She ate oatmeal for breakfast this morning and I think that started her off on he right foot.

The Doctors took her off the morphine drip early this morning so that means she is on a 4 hour dose of Percocet. This seems like it takes the edge off the pain.

Her Endocrinologist, Dr. Katznelson, came today to talk about the options for her pituitary tumor (pebble #2 if you are playing along at home). The original plan was to administer a test dose of the drug Sandostaten while she is here in the hospital to see how she reacts to the medication. Some side effects include nausea, vomiting and an upset stomach, yuck! If all was good, he would then do a full dose to keep the tumor in check until she fully recovers from this surgery, then he was going to take the pituitary tumor out. After assessing Angela this morning, he came to the conclusion that testing the medication would be too much for her now. He said it wouldn’t make much of a difference to wait for a while to before starting treatment on pebble #2. Angela is on board with that decision.

One of the exercises the doctors want her to do is a breathing exercise. She inhales into a device that shows how much volume she is taking into her lungs and how long she can hold it. When she started on Monday she could hardly do it, now she is getting about a 1000!

She got a massage from the massage therapist today thanks to Laurie and Jr, Angela’s sister and brother-in-law. The therapist put on some groovy new age music. With the sounds of birds chirping, her breathing grew more and more relaxed! She ended the session by resting on her side, a position she has not been in for a while.

We had two Physical Therapy visits today back to back! In the first session she went to the bathroom all by herself! In the other session she went for a walk and the therapist showed her how she should use different muscle groups and the ones that are off limits for now. We learned how to shower, put shoes on and what would be ok to wear. Angela needs to learn how to break the day up into many small tasks and take lots of rests between each task.


Love,
Stanford Support Team