Friday, February 25, 2005

Home Again

After running a bunch of tests the doctors decided that they have no idea what is causing all the pain so they sent Michel home yesterday. That isn't quite true that they have no idea. The urologist suspects that it is the kidney stone they found using the ultrasound. To be on the safe side, they made an appointment for Michel to see her neurosurgeon just to check to see if it might be the shunt. The end of the shunt is on the side where Michel is having the pain. So tonight she gets to see Dr. Bolognese.

Paolo A. Bolognese MD I haven't written much about Paolo A. Bolognese, M.D. Associate Director of the Chiari Institute. He was the other neurosurgeon in Michel's surgery. He is from Italy and is "the leading worldwide expert in the field of laser Doppler flowmetry applied to neurosurgery, and the top European figure in the field of neurosurgical intraoperative ultrasound." He came to the USA to work with Dr. Milhorat. I have met Dr. Bolognese a couple of times and he is a very nice man. You really get a sense from him that he cares about his patients.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

What is old is new again

Michel is back in the hospital. She was having pain on the right side of her abdomen all day on Monday but it got so intense Monday night that all she could do was lie on the floor. I called the volunteer fire department and they took her to the local hospital (the same one where she works). They are in the process of running tests but so far they have been saying that they don't know what it is but they don't think it has anything to do with her shunt. Michel's parents have come to the rescue again. They came out yesterday afternoon to watch the kids. I don't know what we would do without them.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Bringing things up to date

When life gives you lemons... whine about it in your blog.

It's been awhile since I brought everyone up to date. Michel did not get back to work as scheduled on the 14th. Her lymph nodes have been swollen for two months so the doctor decided that she had to stay out of work another month. In fact, the doctor sent Michel to see an Oncologist. I guess he decided we didn't have enough to worry about. Anyway, Michel will see him next week. Meanwhile she gets worn out very easily and has been taking a lot of naps. Her spirits are pretty good considering all she has been through. She is upstairs watching a special about Saturday Night Live and I can hear her laughing.

Michel had her worker's comp hearing and everyone agreed that she should be getting her money but we still haven't received a penny. It was another piece of paper work that had to be filled out by the doctor before they will pay us the back money and start paying her again. Next hearing is on St. Patrick's Day.

I do have some good things to talk about but I'll save them for another blog entry.