Another day, another brain surgery

[J] Marisa is through her aneurysm repair surgery. Everything went well. Clips were placed on two aneurysms and some sort of gauze was placed on the other two to add strength. The strengthened aneurysms were too small to be treated by the common practices of clipping or coiling. The doctors will monitor them.

We've seen Marisa once so far. They had just given her pain medication, so she was only semi-conscious. When asked how she was feeling, I think she told me to go have another cheese burger from In-N-Out. I'm pretty sure she'd want it to be a 4x4.

The doctor said we can expect her to have a good shiner. So far she just has a little swelling. Dr. Steinberg was surprised that she hasn't had any vision problems. The largest aneurysm was pushing on her optic nerve. After the clip was in place, they popped it to relieve pressure on the nerve (they used a fancier word than "popped").

Marisa has been a little nervous since last night. She thought she was having problems articulating her thoughts. She also thought she was slurring a bit. Marisa was the only one to notice though. Dr. S. wasn't too concerned. He said speech problems are not unheard of after bypass surgery. He expects any speech problems to disappear after the brain gets used to the new-found blood flow. Marisa wasn't sure if she was having a problem or imagining one. Maybe this is what happens before genius sets in.

We owe Dr. Steinberg and his team a big thank-you. They saved Marisa from certain disability or death two weeks in a row. Judging by the number of Steinberg patients I see around the hospital, I would guess they do the same for 5 - 10 others each week. I know they're over the 600 mark on Moyamoya patients alone.