Darin in Postieland! (in a few short hours, technically)

[Lilan]

Postie means one who is blessedly after(post)-surgery!

[Darin]

@cin605

Thanks! That makes much more sense! I should have expected a more lucid interpretation of his actions. This truly is a learning experience.

-Andy

[Darin]

@Lilan

Ok, that makes sense too. I wondered at first when this "Post" lingo was going around and I thought it meant that he was posting to this site.  Thanks for the info!

-Andy

[Lilan]

Thank you for the updates! I love not having to wonder what's going on in the days around a poster's surgery!

[sharonov]

So before surgery we're preemies?

[Lilan]

There was debate about that terminology on another thread -- not sure a verdict was reached so it may still be open to nominations! 

[Darin]

Darin's had a good afternoon, he was awake enough to recommend a good restaurant down the street. I assured him the hospital cafeteria hadn't killed us with it's food yet.  One of his doctors stopped by for just a minute this morning, but his surgeon is going to be doing rounds at any time now, so we will get a better picture of things once he gets here. He seems to be resting somewhat comfortably,  he looks "good" still swollen a bit, but not too bad.

He has not had any anti-nauseous meds since early this morning and said he does not feel dizzy, so that's really good.  The nurse came in earlier and we asked what he was giving Darin, he said a steroid to help with inflammation of the central nervous system.  Darin asked if the steroids would help make him stronger, but he was rather scrawny.  The nurse told him, that no, it wouldn't, but that Darin should let his dr. know that these don't seem to be working and to ask for the other kind. :0) 

Darin reminded us that tennis was on today, we turned the match on long enough for him to figure out who was winning the match, my sister and I couldn't figure out who was playing b/c the screen was a little fuzzy, so Darin let us know who it was and who had just won.

Will try to update more later after the doctor comes...

We told Darin this afternoon that a lot of people had posted on his site and his blog, and he said he's looking forward to reading it later.  Thanks for all your notes!

Julie
P.S. I'm Darin's sister, and Andy let me post something because I bribed him with a raspberry muffin.

[Darin]

Morning Everyone!

Darin had a normal night last night. He is on pain meds still but seems to be fine. He will be moved out of ICU soon. We are hoping he has a private room but there is no guarantee. However, this morning the doctor came in and said all the rooms are full so they can't move Darin yet! Good deal! So, hopefully the rooms stay full so he can have this nice quiet and private room for another day. Last night they gave him a CT scan. The results are going to be in this afternoon I guess. The Doctor came in yesterday afternoon and saw that it hadn't been done (must have missed this . . .) and wanted to make sure they did one to be safe.

Ok, this is for free, just an observation that is interesting to me. As I sit here and watch Darin sleep, I notice he shifts from time to time like anyone does in there sleep. The interesting part is watching his heart rate. You can tell when he is in a really deep sleep because it gets' down in the 55 bpm area. but when he starts to rub his eyes, or shift his legs around, it slowly creeps up to about 70 bpm. One time he opened his eyes when he was shifting and I checked the heart rate monitor and it said 80 pm.

This information is helpful because I never know if I am disturbing him by whispering or typing this blog, or whatever. Now, I just look at the heart-rate monitor and I can be sure that I am not waking him!

That's all for now!

[CHD63]

Not sure if this last post was Andy or Julie, but thanks for the neat updates on Darin.  Interesting observation on the heart rate ......  Glad they are able to wait for a private room for Darin.  I don't think I could have handled having a roommate post-op ...... hearing and eyesight too sensitive, to say nothing of the dizziness when standing.

Tell Darin we are thinking about him.

Clarice

[Darin]

Sorry everybody, I forgot one important detail . . .   (This is Andy, so blame me, not Julie)

Darin has no dizziness. None. No nausea from vertigo, nothing. None at all.

?

The doctor said he would be very dizzy for 48 hours and that he would most likely throw up frequently. However, this is not the case. The doctor came in last night and when he found out this was the case, he was baffled. He thought about it for a minute and said, "I don't know why this is happening." He then gave us a guess, basically he was trying to think through why this was happening with us.

He said he cut the nerve (balance nerve?) on the right side for the surgery. The two nerves (the left ear and right ear) communicate with one another. they send signals back and forth. The doctor said that the one nerve should be the only one sending signals. This lack of information coming back to the left nerve is what creates dizziness and vertigo. Since he isn't dizzy, the only thing the doctor thought might (and I stress, this was his best guess. He was very open about saying that he did not know why this was happening, but if he had to guess right as we were asking him, this is what he would guess is happening, but he still said he really doesn't know) be happening is that there were still some fibers from the right nerve that we left over after the procedure. These fibers may be returning signals to the other side, and this may be why Darin isn't nauseous at all. Praise the Lord for this! He is being very gracious to Darin.

As we learn more about this happy anomaly I will try to post more updates. We are going to try to talk to the doctor more later when he comes by to see if he has any other ideas of why this is happening.

later,
Andy

[Keri]

Hi Andy,
This is great! I got my balance nerve severed as well, and didn't have dizziness either. Maybe a little nausea. The nurse would say 'you're not dizzy?' and i'd say 'no' and she's say (or maybe it was a resident doc) ' well you should be!' Anyway, I'd get up on my own to go the the bathroom or something and the nurse would come flying in "what are you doing???!!! you're going to fall over - you can't  walk on your own yet" and things like that. I think I about gave her a heart attack. Since I was in neuro ICU for a few days, they could see me all the time. Now I'm 6 months post op - I still have some wonkyheadedness, but it feels more like being a bit tipsy, which seems better than being dizzy. I always thought it was because I had kept exercising / running right up until surgery so my other side had compensated. Who knows? I'm glad Darin is doing well with this.

Thanks for your informative and humorous updates! I'll keep praying for Darin.

Keri

[Lilan]

So happy he's doing well.

This makes me want to burst into tears for him and all of us! So poignant! (But I refuse to cry because head/sinus congestion is not what I need right now! No tears and no sneezes for at least another week!):

But then he stretched his hand all the way over to the opening of his ear canal and started rubbing his finger and thumb together. Now he did this but he never touched his ear, he stay about 1 inch from his ear. Then he did this to the other ear, which has a lump of gauze on it. Then he repeated this process for both ears and fell back asleep.

[nteeman]

FWIW, I was told before my surgery that, even though I didn't notice it, my AN was affecting my balance. They did a few tests and told me it was natural for the body to adjust to the loss of function of the vestibular nerve. I was then told that this could be good for my recovery as I had already started to make this adjustment.  After surgery I, if fact, did not have any major balance or dizziness problems. Yes, I did have a little wonky head feeling but no major balance, dizziness and no nausea (or vomiting). This could be similar for Darin.

Neal 

[CHD63]

Andy and Darin .....

Not sure how much Darin has been up on his feet yet ..... he could still have some issues so someone needs to stay close by when he is up walking ..... at least for the first few days.   Sure glad the dizziness is not evident.

The terms dizzy, vertigo, disorientation, wonkyheadedness can all have different meanings to each of us ANers.  My vestibular therapist's opinion is that they are all forms of vertigo ..... just different levels.  I never had the "room spinning around" type of vertigo, it was more of a disorientation (not quite figuring out where "up" is) at first ..... since then it has been spells of "wonkyheadedness" (love that term ..... it is so appropriate ..... thanks, Deb!) in which I have moments of "oops gotta shift right again."

As others have said, the brain adapts well to the loss of vestibular signals from one side by shifting the input over to the other side.  In some cases this begins before treatment, some afterwards.  In my case I have had surgeries on both sides (AN side resulted in complete loss of vestibular signal, other side damaged), thus I am apparently getting erratic signals from the only remaining vestibular nerve, which is almost worse than no signal.  Other threads on balance go into more detail on therapy, etc.

Overall it sounds like Darin is doing extremely well.  Keep us updated.

Clarice

[Jim Scott]

Andy ~

The updates are appreciated, especially when the news is positive - and no vertigo or nausea certainly qualifies as positive!  I had a very similar experience.  My brain had learned to function with input from only one side so I avoided the trauma of sudden SSD or nausea.  Also, like Darin, when I had my surgery, there were no semi-private rooms/beds available - and I spent 4 days in ICU.  It wasn't nearly as quiet as Darin's ICU room seems to be, but I still managed to sleep a lot, as almost all AN post-op patients do.    I also got to find out what my BP and heart-rate were.  They were quite low, most of the time (128/78 BP, 70 pulse-rate).  I recall noticing that my BP rose a bit at one point and I asked the nurse about it.  She said that doing almost anything, especially eating (I had just finished a light meal) can raise your blood pressure.  I thought this was not only logical but useful information. 

I'm sure your conversations with the doctor will shed some light on Darin's lack of dizziness, which, of course, is a good thing.    Thanks again for the updates.  Thank Julie, too.

Jim