Its Wednesday July 11, Liz and I are still up at Houghton Lake. We are currently waiting for our mom to call us to give us all the inormation. Things have taken a turn for the worse with Andrew. Last night around 12:30am, he had a Grand Mal seizure the doctors could not get under control. They gave him a small amount of the medication given to him back when he was originally airlifted to Childrens back years ago that induces Coma. The small amount they gave him they compared to a Xanax, with that and the other medications hes been on they did get him to sleep. We just got a text from my mom, its about 1pm, that the Grand Mal started again and they could not get it under control. They are inducing Coma cuurently which will require a ventilator im sure. Then its a matter of praying Andrew will wake up. Please pray for him, and our parents. I will update more when i know exactly what it going on.

Sorry for the delayed update...

I just wanted to tell everyone thank you for your thoughts and prayers, they are very appreciated. As many of you know our family takes a vacation once a year to houghton lake. Obviously my mom did not come this year, Liz and I were not going to come either but our family convinced us to come with them to try to clear our heads, and since Andrew is having a hard time with visitors right now anyways we did decide to come. Liz and I will be up north (with the rest of the family) until this coming Saturday. We are keeping in touch with my parents every night getting updates. The last time i spoke with my mom, Andrew was having some issues with the medication they put him on to calm him down (Thorizine) (Spelling is probably way off, sorry). Friday night he had a fever and was hallucinating. My parents have been talking to the doctors to try to come up with something we can do, but they were having a difficult time because no one tends to work in the hospital on weekends i guess.
They were also talking about inserting a G Tube because Andrew hasnt eaten. They were having some issues with his cooperation with some tests they needed to do before hand. Then they were discussing doing a feeding tube until they were able to do the G Tube but Andrew wasnt having it. He wouldnt let them put the tube down his throat.. so, i will talk to my mom tonight when they are home from the hospital and will update later in the week, she did leave a comment under my last post with an update as well.
Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.

I thought I would add some pictures of Andrew to the Blog, hopefully we will see him happy like this again, and soon! =)

This is Andrew with his cousin Jessica at his Graduation.

Andrew with Uncle Matt and Jessica, Christmas 2010.

                                                                 Andrew, Christmas 2011

Andrew, Uncle Dave, Terry and Uncle Mike, Houghton Lake 2009

                                                            Andrew, Christmas 2010

Still No Visitors Please.

It’s Tuesday. Not much has changed since my last post. Right now everyone thinks its better to let the nurses and doctors be with Andrew, every time he sees one of us he gets agitated and needs to be sedated. They have been sedating him every 3-4 hours with Adivan. The nurses keep him calm somehow, whenever he sees anyone he’s related to he tries to get up and leave. I think all of us under estimated how strong Andrew is, he is physically strong as an ox! It took 8 people to keep him in his bed, two of which were huge men.

They were supposed to do Andrews spinal tap, ophthalmology examination and biopsy yesterday all while he was put under. They ended up just doing the spinal and ophthalmology exam, they are going to do the biopsy today now.

 It seems like everyone is on the same page with trying to get all his procedures done as quick as possible, get some results as quick as possible, confirm his diagnosis so we can move to the next step. A psychologist is supposed to visit Andrew this morning to do an evaluation and to see if there is some kind of medication that will help him cooperate with us. Speech pathology can’t even go in there and talk to him or do an evaluation because he has his mind set on escaping from the hospital whenever he is not sedated.

 We are worried about what is going to happen with Andrew once he is released from the hospital. Who knows how long he will be in the hospital, if it’s at the rate they do their tests and get their results were probably looking at a really long haul. Hopefully some kind of medication will help Andrew focus and work on being able to communicate with us so he can come home with us. In the condition he is in now, there is no way either of my parents would be able to take care of him at home.  It’s hard to tell if he knows what he’s doing and he just wants to leave or if he has no clue of what’s going on and is losing his mind.  It’s like he’s trapped in his own body and thinks he’s ok, but he’s not. We don’t even know if he knows he had a stroke. Liz and I were talking last night about IF it is MELAS Syndrome, life expectancy is 5 years from when your “Stroke like symptoms” start. And now the doctors are saying he had one in 2007 that no one knew about, it showed on his MRI in 2007 and no one brought it to anyone’s attention. They were looking for other things in the MRI in 2007, we don’t know if the doctors missed it or what happened, but none of us knew he had a stroke in 2007 until his doctor he has now reviewed past MRI pictures. How does something like this get over looked?? So, if he does have MELAS Syndrome, does his life expectancy start from 2007 or 2012? I know I am jumping the gun, but these are our thoughts and something I think we need to prepare ourselves for. We are praying that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, this is just so unfair. Andrew is so young, he has not experienced so many things in life.

 Please keep praying for him, we are hoping to get some results back soon so we can move forward, even if they could absolutely say that what he has is not MELAS, I would be good with that.

More Later...

Bad Night.. No Visitors Please.

Monday July 2, 2012

It's Monday, I am at work this morning, which is pointless since my mind is not here right now. Thank God my boss is on vacation this week so we don’t have patients and it will be easier to go if i need to. Andrew had a bad evening and night last night.  

It sounds like all day he was doing pretty good, he enjoyed his visit with Uncle Mike and Trich. Uncle Matt had him laughing, his real laugh, we haven’t heard that since before this whole thing started, so I can imagine it was good for my parents to hear. Grandma Lois had a visit, Andrew was happy to see her; he showed her more affection then anyone so far. Jessica came for a visit as well. Andrew enjoyed all the pictures Jess showed him.

When Mike and Trich left Andrew tried going with them. When Uncle Matt left he followed him to the elevator and tried leaving. My mom had to have a couple guys go get him and put him in a wheelchair and wheel him back to his room. It seemed like ever since he tried getting on the elevator his mind was set on “I’m getting the hell out of here!”

He seemed anxious the whole visit with Grandma, he wanted her to take him home. He kept waving at her like, “Come on Grandma, let’s go!”

 (I am going to try to get the story straight from what I was told by my mom, but I wasn’t there).

Grandma left the room while Andrew was in the bathroom, she went to the bathroom down the hall. When Andrew was done he noticed Grandma had left, he pushed his way through my mom, screaming and went out to the hall. Once again he darted straight for the elevators and once again had to be escorted back to his room. My mom had told his nurse earlier he seemed agitated and anxious to get a sedative to relax him more. The nurse said she needed a doctor’s order so they were waiting on a sedative for quite a while.

 In the meantime Andrew was sitting on the couch in his room and he tried leaving, once again. Grandma was able to move to the other side of the room, and Mom, Dad and Liz were trying to restrain him. A staff team was called in to help, it took about 6 staff people, my Mom, Dad and Liz to hold him down while they waited for a sedative. He pulled out all the stops, kicking, hitting, and biting, he fully tried getting out of there. They were able to give him a sedative but his adrenaline was pumping so hard it wasn’t taking effect. The restraints were put on him so he couldn’t get out of his bed and a nurse came in to try to talk to him. My mom said this nurse had a very soothing voice and wiped his forehead with a cool rag and was able to calm him down enough to let the sedative take effect. He calmed down and eventually went to sleep. The staff told my Mom, Dad, Liz and Grandma to go down to get a coffee and clear their heads for awhile, that they would take care of Andrew. Once Andrew fell asleep they were able to say their goodbyes and my Dad stayed the night. They also had to have someone else in the room to watch over Andrew since he was restrained to the bed.

Late last night they agreed to take the restraints off Andrew because they didn’t want him to wake up, be restrained and this whole thing start all over again.

 I just got a call from my Mom, he is awake and he did get very agitated as soon as he woke up trying to leave again. As far as I know right now my Dad is in bed with Andrew trying to keep him contained. They are waiting for the doctors to take him for his biopsy, spinal and ophthalmology exam, which he will be put under for.

 For right now my parents have asked that only immediate family visit him until this is under control. He is going to be out of it most the day today anyways after they put him to sleep for his procedures. Honestly  I am kind of relieved that I wasn’t there yesterday to witness what my family did, it is absolutely heartbreaking and I don’t know if I could have watched. What makes everything so much harder is we don’t know what is going on in Andrew’s head right now, we can’t even communicate with him. I wish this could just be over, what did this poor kid do to deserve this? He’s been through so much already, its just unbelievable.

 I am going to go up to the Hospital after work, and will update when I get home.

Once again, please keep Andrew and my family in your thoughts and prayers.

Uneventful Weekends...

Sunday, July 1, 2012

It's Sunday, around 3pm. I am still debating if I am going to go up to the hospital today, i might take a day off. I talked to my Mom. Andrew slept good last night, I brought Gracie up there for a visit last night, he really enjoyed that. Aunt Markie and Uncle Matt also stopped up for a visit yesterday.

From what I gather today is a pretty uneventful day. Mom spent the night with Andrew. He had a couple visitors this morning, Uncle Mike, Trich and Lola. Andrew tried getting on the elevator with them when they left, i guess my mom had to call for some help because he was getting physical with her. I don't really blame him, i would be trying to get out of there too. I guess there was also an incident with the wheelchair last night, he tried to take it for a ride around 11:30pm. He has no fear of his IV's and everything he is hooked to coming out. He gets tangled in his IV all day long. It is actually kind of good to hear he is trying to get out of bed and do things, now if only he could communicate with us. Uncle Matt and Aunt Markie went up for a visit today, they are there right now. I was told Andrew played a pretty good game of hangman with Uncle Matt to the point he was laughing! He has not laughed since he has been there, so that was also good to hear.

Sunday is an uneventful day for the hospital, everyone must be off for the weekend. The surgeon did come in and speak with my mom today. The plan for tomorrow is to take him to the OR for his Spinal Tap, Muscle Biopsy and Ophthamology examination. The results from the MRI also came back which showed no further damage than the initial stroke, which is good.

My sister Liz is taking Grandma Lois up there around 4pm, and Jessica said she may be stopping in today as well. Since not much is going on today it is probably a good time to let all his visitors in and stay home. I don't remember this hospital being such sticklers on visitors in the past! I thought I was going to have a separate pass for Gracie yesterday!

When I go to the hospital tomorrow I will fill in any details I missed for today and update for tomorrow.

Please keep Andrew in your thoughts and prayers.