hello everyone, this is Kristin, Brad's wife. I know you wanted me to keep you informed of his surgery and recovery. Well, the surgery went well and he came out just fine. So far so good. It took about 8 hours, 1 hour pre-op, 6 hours surgery and 1 hour post-op. He was awake and talking to me in the recovery room. He seems to have a little short term memory loss, asking the same questions several times, but i've been told that that's to be expected. He slept a little thru the night, but they had to do a CT scan this morning and all the movement caused his head to start hurting. He's on morphine and codeine and still is semi-conscious, but still in tremendous pain. He has some swelling, so they had to increase his Decadron(steroid) dose, which in turn raised his blood sugar, so he's having to do insulin shots. Hopefully that's just temporary! His blood pressure and heart rate are high, so he's on some BP medicine and standard procedure antibiotic. I'm sure he'll be in ICU for several days. He and I were both so scared he'd wake up and not be able to communicate, but he remembers everyone and understands everything, can move both arms and both legs, can squeeze your hands and push with his feet, so all his motor functions are doing okay. So, other than the terrible headache and side effects of the medicine, he's doing okay. Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers and for your concern. During a time like this it's so nice to know that there are people who care about you. I promise to keep you updated as often as i can, but the hospital doesn't have wireless internet connection, so I'm having to post this at home. But i'll post updates as often as i can. again, thanks so much for caring about him!
Kristin Stone