Monday, August 13, 2007

Today was another day of progress for Kelsi. The progress, from her parents point of view, was that she is a little more active, aware and for short periods of time she is able to follow simple voice commands. For the doctors, this day was considered extremely significant. At the start of the day they indicated that all chemically induced anesthesia should have already worn off and that she should have woken up at least enough to follow simple commands. They did not believe this had happened. After forming a plan as to the next steps to take: MRI, Tracheotomy and
percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG), they went into the room to work directly with Kesli. This is the first time any of the medical staff were able to observe and actually believe that she is close enough to consiousness to follow simple commands. When parents told them she has been able to follow commands for very short periods of time for the last 2 days, they always indicated that is was reflex action and over optimistic parents. Now they know. They completely abandoned the plans set up in the morning and began a more agressive plan to remove all unneeded life support (ICP Pressure BOLT, Pick line, etc.). The remaining life support items are: assisted breathing (only needed at her deepest levels of sleep - very mild assistance that they hope to wean her of), feeding tube (she needs to be concious and able to eat full meals before this is removed) and blood pressure assistance (not sure how much longer this is needed).
At the end of the day, Kelsi was agressively moving her left arm and leg. The right side has some movement, but the doctors indicated that their testing indicates that the part of the brain that controls these movements is damaged and that the neural networks that control the left side will need to re-map themselves before she will be able to use this side in a normal fashion.