Yes, she scared us pretty bad. She had slowly been retreating into herself for the past week. She had been drooling and swallowing was getting progresively harder. She was also extremely weak. She took a couple of nose dives to the carpet while she was at home last weekend. All things we had been told to expect from the radiation/chemo and decrease in steriod. But Thursday was just too much. When she could not even swallow soft food, something had to be done. Edgar called me Thursday afternoon from Dr Banerjee's office. They were ordering another CT scan to be done. He called me back later in the afternoon to let em know that the CT scan showed her ventricals (the areas that hold the liquid in the brain) were swollen. They didn't know if was because of...the decrease of steriods...the radiation...or the worst senario, the tumor had grown and was blocking drainage. An MRI was needed to find out the cause. The quickest way to do this would be to admitt Natalia to the hospital. They increased her dose of dexamethasone to 6mg and began an iv to pump her full of fluid. I finally got fully calm enough to drive to San Francisco Friday morning.
Natalia's increased dose of steriod began to show its effect by Friday afternoon. After not having any food or drink all day we got word that the MRI would not be happening. They could not get an anestesiologist. She was hungry and was able to eat AND swallow dinner. By Saturday she was doing a lot better. The resident nuerosurgeon, and Dr Gupta's assistant, said they would probably not do the shunt becasue she was responding so well to the increase of steriod. We also got a better explaination of how radiation treatment works...the results do not show right away, it may take days, weeks, months afterward to see the full results of the treatmetns she is currently undergoing. At least now, I feel Sophia and I can go home on Sunday and Natalia will be ok.
Love to you all,
Roni
