I would like to know if anyone else has experienced any of what we have. My 37 yr old son discovered he had an acoustic neuroma on May 5, 2006. He had been slowly loosing his hearing in the left ear for the past 6-7 years. He developed a severe headache with no relief on May 3, 2006, which led to the AN diagnosis. He had surgery on May 9th, 11 hours long. The AN was larger than anticipated and partially attached to the brain stem. He spent 3 days in the NICU, 4 days in a room, then transferred to a rehab hospital in the area. He was there for a week, slowly making progress with rehabilitation. He was weak, mostly on the left side, and spoke slowly, otherwise was doing good. A week later he developed hydrocephalus, the surgeon put in a shunt, tested the spinal fluid and discovered a "bug". He took the shunt out, installed a ventriculoscopy, opened all the incisions and "washed" them out with antibiotics and we went back to NICU. The next day he threw a blood clot which lodged in his lung. A filter was installed to prevent any additional blood clots. The ventriculoscopy did not drain, so was reinstalled. It stopped draining again and had to be flushed & repositioned. It stopped draining again, so had to be reinstalled on both sides. They are now draining. His heart rate has gone from very slow during surgery to now being very fast. He now has a fever even though the "bug" in the spinal fluid is gone. They cannot locate any other infections. He cannot talk, but does recognize us and squeezes our hand with his right hand only. He has been in NICU for 18 days now. Before this he was never sick a day, very active and healthy.ÂÂ
Sorry it is so long, but we are very frustrated and would like to know if anyone else has had any of these experiences.
Thanks for any information.
