Man, I would love to see her smile like that again.

On 10/10/14, Church Home Nursing Home called to let us know they had called an ambulance.  The ambulance took mom to Houston Medical Center.  Church Home indicated that mom was very non-responsive plus was aspirating on her oral medications.

Mom had been very unresponsive for several days.   She would “maybe” open her eyes when we spoke to her and “maybe” utter a response to our questions.  But that was about it.

We have watched her digression occur linearly for a few weeks now.

At Houston Medical, they did a few tests and put her in ICU.  There we met a Neurologist that has jumped all over mom’s case.   He has ordered multiple MRIs, CT scans, Sonagrams, etc.    He has basically come back and told us this…

Mom’s left hemisphere of her brain is swollen.   That swollenness has “pushed” into the right side, causing all the stroke like symptoms and damage.  The stroke-like damage is probably permanent.    The swelling, in his opinion thus far, could be caused by one of three things…

1.  Some condition (the word he used probably had 145 letters, so I really did not catch it), that is causing the swelling.  He put her on some steroids to reduce the swelling.

2.  A Single Brain Tumor.   (This is requiring many more tests to determine size, and to see if it would be treatable with either radiation or chemotherapy.)

3.  Multiple Lesions in the brain.   (Since mom had been a smoker for most of her adulthood, this is a very strong possibility.    He is doing lung MRIs to determine if possibly she has had a cancer that moved from the lungs to the brain.  This is the probably the worse case scenario, but also the most likely due to her smoking.  But only the tests will tell).

So, while none of this can be remotely considered good news, we are happy that at least we are getting answers.   Due to the steroids (I am guessing), she has already been MUCH more responsive than we have seen in weeks.  She is “somewhat” talking with us somewhat coherently.

She is now getting more CT’s and MRI’s and we await finding out further information.     I will keep our family’s friends posted via this forum……

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Shelly