Katy Dickinson

Out of the Hospital!

As I wrote yesterday, my 16-year-old son spent the last few days in Lucille Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH) in Palo Alto, California, for brain biopsy surgery and recovery. We are delighted that Paul got to go home today! He ate some breakfast and a red apple, walked most of the way up a hallway and back, and practiced going up and down stairs with two physical therapists before being discharged. Paul has been brave and patient with this whole scary experience and we are very proud of him.

We are less happy not to know what is causing his sudden, severe, and constant headaches. Paul continues to take strong prescription painkillers. He is frequently nauseous and sees double sometimes but the nurse said those symptoms will go away as he recovers from surgery. Despite all of the adventures and excitement of the past few days, we are still trying to figure out a solution to the original problem. There are many test results still to come in. Early reports say that the lesions (abnormal tissue) in his brain are not malignant cancer or an infection (hooray!). However, we do not even know if the lesions are causing Paul's headaches or just an unrelated thing he was born with. We may not know for weeks. Once all of the pathology (study and diagnosis) is complete, if Pediatric Neurosurgery cannot resolve this, we will probably move on to Pediatric Neurology.

Paul goes back to High School after the President's Day holiday. Until then, our job is to help him recover fully from surgery, grow strong again, cope with the pain, and pray.

Posted at 05:53PM Feb 09, 2009 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[3]