Dear Friends,

Shary had a rough few days this week, but we seem to have turned the corner now. She had a stomach feeding tube put in on Monday, which caused her fever to spike. Yesterday she had an episode in the afternoon that I was afraid was a seizure, and she became completely unresponsive. They have now determined that it was NOT a seizure, but a reaction to the anti-seizure medicine (ironic), which they have now stopped and replaced with something else. A CT scan also showed that her ventricles were not removing the normal fluid as they should be, due to some residual blood in the brain, which was causing swelling and also contributing to the fever (kind of a vicious circle of incidents). It was pretty scary for all of yesterday and much of today.

However, they have now moved her back to the Critical Care unit, inserted a tube to drain the fluid, and put her on the Arctic Sun blanket to lower the fever, which reached 105.8 at one point today. When I left tonight, the fever was actually 97.7, and all other vitals were good. She was beginning to wake up again and was talking a little. All of the doctors agree that none of this should effect her long-term recovery chances, which still look nearly complete. As soon as she is stronger, she is going to start on a medicine called Provigil, which will wake her up so she can start rehab (any of you medical types reading this, I'd sure love some feedback on this).

So we've survived another scare, and hopefully will continue forward from here. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers - she's obviously fighting hard herself!

Bob

What did you do in the Corps? Snare; Drum Major; Drum Instructor/Arranger

What years were you a Corps member? 1970-73; 78-79