Saturday seems to be the day after the storm for us. Mari has her first visitor arrive at 8am. Throughout the rest of the day, she has a steady flow of visitors. Sometimes there are quite a few at one time.
The Attending talks to us that morning and tells everyone who happens to be in her room, that Mari’s last CT scan is the worst CT scan she has ever seen. Not only did she say that once but she says it twice in the same conversation. Needless to say, no one is happy to hear that.
Well, they do another EEG that lasts about an hour. When I look at the brain waves it seem like the EEG today is much better than yesterday’s. I think we are going to get a positive report as the one from yesterday did not look good at all. When the neurologist comes in he tells us there really is no change from the day before. I tell him what I have seen and I want to know how it has not improved because it looks like it was better. He says that the sensitivity was probably at a higher setting so it looked better than it really was. I am simply crushed as I let my hopes get way too high. I completely break down. All those in the room, and there are quite a few at this time, feel totally devastated. It is like we have this balloon that was filled with air to maximum capacity and suddenly becomes deflated all at once. Everyone can feel the balloon deflate and there does not seem to be a dry eye in her room as almost everyone is crying. My father-in-law is trying to talk about children in the Bible and for the first time he breaks down crying. Bottom line, I think everyone is just devastated.
I ultimately have a meltdown to where I just cannot function anymore and cannot even answer simple questions that are being asked of me. So the nurse asks me if I would like to take a nap beside Mari. I say yes. She moves Mari over. The nurse and Keith clear out the room so I can just sleep for a little while. My best friend Shelly stays with me and just rubs my back until I am practically asleep. That is one of the most reassuring and comforting things for me. I fall asleep pretty quickly. My husband says I slept for at least an hour and half but no more than two hours. When I wake up, everyone is gone except my sister-in-law Amy because she is staying over with us. The family wants to make sure we have at least one family member with us at all times during this time which we are very grateful for.
We all go to the Ronald McDonald House around 5:30pm for dinner because there is supposed to be a group of people to come in and cook dinner for everyone in the house. Well, they never show up. So we scrounged around and eat leftovers. I then take a shower which helps me to feel so good. We go back to the hospital and I am pretty numb for the rest of the night. I am just trying to take everything in.
At some point during the early evening, Mari’s shunt starts to drain again. This is such a good sign as it means the swelling in her brain is starting to decrease. You can see blood in the drainage tube. They tell us this is normal. It is such a major relief for all of us there.
The Attending PICU tells us that they want to take Mari for a MRI first thing in the morning. We ask her why since we are told that to get a really good MRI you need to wait about 7 days after the injury takes place. She tells us it is to help us with our decision making process. The reality of everything that has happened just seems to get to be so much sometimes.
Amy and I go back to the Ronald McDonald House around 10:30pm to go to sleep that night and Keith stays behind with Mari. I go to sleep around 12:15am and for the first time I sleep straight through until I receive a phone call at 7:45am. It is the best night’s sleep I have had since Mari went in the hospital almost two weeks ago Wednesday.