After brain surgery

Friday December 4th 2015:
Today Derek rested from the big surgery. He had a follow up T3 MRI to make sure all went well. It was his
first unsedated MRI and he was a bit scared in it. The MRI showed there were no strokes and all looked as he
had expected it to.

Monday December 7th 2015:
The oncologist spoke to us and told us that it is an aggressive astrocytoma/glioma. Part of the tumor will be sent
today to St Jude to asses it to see what specific kind of tumor it is.

Tuesday December 8th 2015:
Derek had a follow up eye exam. He has been keeping his eyes closed for the most part since Thanksgiving.
Upon the Ophthalmologist looking, she saw that he had filimentary keratitis in his right eye. He was put on
ointment every couple hours.

Wednesday December 9th 2015:
They clamped off his drain to see how his fluid output was, mainly, was his body draining any or was it all
coming out through the drain. He had a fast 5 minute MRI to check the fluid in his ventricles, and they were
more filled. That meant a shunt was going to be needed. We pretty much knew that that was going to be needed.

Thursday December 10th 2015:
Derek took some steps with a walker!!

Friday December 11th 2015:
Friday afternoon Derek had a fast 30 minute surgery to implant the ventriculoperitoneal shunt into his head
between his skin and his skull. The top of the tube is in the spot where they put the initial drain in, and the rest
is threaded down to drain into his abdomen.

Sunday December 13 2015:
We got Derek a pair of sunglasses (why didn't we think of this before???). With the shunt and his sunglasses,
Derek had a good day with his eyes open! I guess the pressure must be coming down. This is good.