It's 7:30pm and I'm sitting by Maria as she sleeps. She had been out for an hour now. She really needs sleep. You'll appreciate why as you read on.
About 8:30am I called the hospital to learn that Maria had a rough night with a lot of vomiting. Doctors saw her this morning and changed her anti-emetic drug.
I went to see Gabi's class host assembly(they did an awesome job. Gabi read her bit fluently, I was very proud) followed by morning tea. I got into the hospital about mid-morning. Maria was very unwell and agitated. She wasn't even up to seeing her mum.
Further changes were made to her medications to see whether they could determine why she was feeling so nausea. She was quite agitated, probably because of the inability to rest due to the nausea, pain and lack of sleep.
She had an MRI @ 4:30pm (2hrs later than planned). This scan is not related to how she is currently feeling (i.e. planned prior to surgery).
About 5.45pm the Neurosurgeon saw Maria. He immediately put her symptoms of vomiting, nausea, headache and dizzy spells down to her complete withdrawal from steroids. They wanted to be careful reintroducing it while awaiting the final infection pathology, but have decided now to introduce a low dose. Although the infection pathology is to come, he said the initial indication was that they were very nasty bugs. He is happy how she is currently responding against the infection.
He said from looking at the MRI he estimates he removed the bulk of the tumour and infection. The residual tumour was glued in by infection around the main arteries. When starting to clear those masses, Maria's speech started slurring and she was feeling faint (she doesn't recall that). Making a judgement call (a sound one), he didn't proceed any further because of the increased risk of stroke or paralysis.
