January 30, 2013

For the last few nights, around 2am, Matt has decided to have a date with me. Except, minus the me part (I am always invited), and he's all alone eating cereal and drinking glasses of orange juice, decaffeinated ice tea, and lots of water. I am awake this whole time, while in bed, but refuse to let this be a new part of our daily routine or nightly routine. He does get up to take his pain meds and he does need to eat when he takes them as to not get an upset stomach, so, he half way has an excuse, but all the liquid intake is a no bueno when you want a good night sleep.

He has had a great couple of days. Today he ventured out for the first time since his surgery. He had his dad take him to his work office and around town to visit a couple friends. He had planned on the airport too, but got tired. Next week, as long as he is off pain meds, he can start driving again, maybe. It's kind of like letting your 16 year old drive for the first time. Although I haven't experienced that yet, I can imagine this is what it might feel like. Mom and Dad Mikkelson leave us on Sunday and then we are on our own. We do have my parents to call on if we need anything. We have scheduled his follow up appointments for Wednesday and Thursday, February 20 & 21 in Salt Lake City. Updates might be few and far between from now till then. I'd hate to bore Matt's followers, but I warned you that the blog will change back to our yearly family blog.

January 27, 2013

These posts will most likely start being updated weekly unless we have news that we feel we just need to share. All in all, Matt is doing very well. His days seem to go back and forth. He'll have a good day then wake up feeling not so hot the next day. That's how the weekend was. Saturday went great then Sunday came and he woke up feeling nauseas and had a headache. He is getting his full appetite back, but wants things that we don't have in the house and need to go out and get and nobody wants to tell this patient "no" just yet. Soon though, this may come to a stop. He's been up and walking around the house a lot more. I think he might be getting a bit cabin feverish. We're still waiting to see if there are any changes to his personality. So far, we don't see any dramatic change. He says noises get to him more but that might be from not being fully recovered yet. He had his staples come out on Sunday. Overall, this wasn't too much of a traumatic event. The most painful part was when a staple got hold of his hair and that was pulled out. We have been told to put an ointment called Bacitraycin on it 3x's a day and massage the scar tissue. That's what the last picture is and this doesn't hurt him which is a good thing. He actually has no feeling around this area because of the air/fluid mixture. This week sometime he will be heading back to have his blood drawn once more to check his sodium level. This was a request from the surgeon when we left the hospital, just to be on the safe side.

January 25, 2013

Well my post last evening, in hopes of a peaceful night sleep, went over very well. Matt made it through the night without taking any pain meds!! He did wake up with quite a headache though. I know he tries to lessen the amount of pain meds they have prescribed him, but I reminded him that he did just have brain surgery only a week ago (we're going to get tired of the word brain surgery).  I don't have much to post today, but when he started to explain some symptoms he was having, I stopped, grabbed the notebook, and said wait...your readers will want to know this.

He started to explain how his head was feeling like it was full of air and fluid. He said that when he pushes on his right side, where the incision is, it feels squishy like an air cushion, and when he gets up or moves his head he can feel fluid moving around inside. He also said that his sinuses make kind of a whistle sound when he moves his head around. He got a call from the surgeon's secretary today and she confirmed that yes, that's what he is indeed feeling. It could last 2-3 months and is fluid and/or air surrounding his brain underneath the skull and outside his skull underneath his skin (I can officially call him an airhead). She also let him know that his tumor was what they had thought it was, a cranial meningioma. It was benign (yay!!) and it was categorized as a level 1. If you ever plan to have a brain tumor, you want a level 1 because a level 5 is bad. So for now, he needs to continue his rest and take it easy until we head back to SL for his follow up appointments in 3 1/2 weeks with the surgeon, eye specialists, and an endocrinologist.

January 24, 2013 - Update #2

I am going to try and post on the blog during the evening in hopes that we will start sleeping through the night. Today was my first day back to work and it went very well. I have to rely on Wendy now to give me updates through out the day or I'm not going to have anything to post for you all to read. Don't worry, I'm not offended if our life becomes boring to you. I realize it's not dramatic enough to be a Lifetime movie, but this is all the drama I want to deal with this year.

 The boys made cookies today with Grandma Wendy while I was at work and daddy was sleeping.

"Not tonight dear, I had a craniotomy"

Our friends, Jeff and Deann, had this made (the top picture) and sent it to Matt. He doesn't look thrilled in the picture but he smiled when he read it. In the bottom picture, Matt's cousin is part of this website called Chive On, I think. They have these "contests" where peeps take pics of themselves with a Chive On shirt and try to make it on their website. Well, they must have like this one because Matt made it to the website (he also looks thrilled in this picture too). 

Today was just an ok day for Matt. He was up quite a bit more, I heard, but was in a lot more pain and had more of a constant headache. His mom rated his pain level a 4 out 10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best). He can't seem to quench his thirst no matter what he tries to drink. He put in an order today for: Cactus Cooler, Country Time Lemonade, Sprite, and de-caffinated Ice Tea. He is trying all these along with his 20 glasses of chocolate milk he downs each day. I talked to a friend of ours who is a wound care specialist, and she will be coming over on Sunday to remove his staples (sorry Jen, we can't wait any longer than day 10). She will also be bringing some Lanacane in case it starts to hurt. He's a little nervous about this while I think this will be really cool to watch. I hope to be more interesting and have more to report to you tomorrow.

January 24, 2013

Here I am again, up at 2:12 am, checking on the "baby" to watch him sleep and make sure he's still breathing. I probably should stop referring to him as the "baby"; so, from now on he'll go back to Matt. The upside of the blog now is that you can continue to get updates on Matt's progress and hear how things are going. The downside is that more of the family might be involved. It's not all about Matt anymore (sorry dear, your days of stealing the spotlight might be coming to end).

Last night, we played musical beds yet again. We have a total of 5 beds upstairs (2 twin bunk beds and a king), and with 6 people, only 3 of them were occupied. I have been worried to sleep with Matt in fear of rolling too close to his head or accidentally hitting him (which never happened before but you never know), so I've slept with each of the boys. Grandma Wendy also gets the pleasure of sharing a spacious twin to sleep with the other boy while Scotlyn sleeps in a 2'x2' space next to these beds on the floor, and Matt sleeps in the king all by himself (he did just have brain surgery, so we are cutting him some slack). Matt, kind of has his days and nights mixed up a bit, I know, back to the "baby" reference (last time, I promise!). He is up eating a bowl of cereal and reading the paper ( I hope this isn't his new habit. In his defense, he needed more pain meds.). He sleeps a lot through the day and is awake more toward the evening and at night. Yesterday he slept maybe 9 hours out of the 12 hours from 7am to 7pm. He did have a couple people stop by to say hello and chat. He will still start talking to you and close his eyes and doze off a bit mid sentence at times but for the most part hold a good conversation for about 5-10 minutes. He also ate really well; which shows that his appetite is finally coming back. He had a PB&J sandwich, chips, lots of gatorade, hawaiin punch, chocolate milk, and his mom made Goulash for dinner (it's one of his favorites and I've made it once since we've been married). He continued to stay in bed for the day and watch tv off and on but mostly slept.

Today I am returning back to work, a little worried to leave him, but I know his mom will take just as good care of him as I would if not better. She might even be a little bit more patient than I am, like, when he wants to put "a splash" of Diet Mountain Dew in his Gatorade (yuck) or mixing his chocolate milk and regular milk together because it has to have the right amount of chocolate. He actually has a taste thing right now where his mouth just feels yucky and he can't seem to quench his thirst (this is normal too) and water taste gross to him.

So, that was it for yesterday (big day, I know). Baby steps from here on out, but we are ecstatic that he is doing this well so soon. Today marks the one week anniversary, and I think one brain tumor in someone's life is enough. We can only go uphill from here for the rest of 2013 with a few little bumps and maybe a slight detour along the way.

January 23, 2012

I feel like I'm writing the ending to a really good novel, maybe not a New York Times best seller, but an intense chapter book. Here's an update on the latter part of yesterday. We checked out of our hotel room, and were officially discharged from the hospital about 2:00pm, but Matt was so tired and as he put it "lazy" that he couldn't bear the thought of exerting that much energy to get dressed, so he fell back asleep and slept for a bit, this is normal and part of the recovery. His brain still hasn't forgiven him and only days will tell us when it finally decides to do that (apparently, it's on its own time). We made it out of the hospital around 4:00pm, and after buying out the pharmacy of all the meds he needs to take, we were on our way home. It kind of felt like coming home for the first time with a new baby, a big baby, but same feeling (weird, I know). I was nervous for the drive home, decided not to talk at all because he's not into conversations these days, played no music (which made for a really long drive), obeyed the speed limit and even drove a bit slower (this is not me at all), and let my "baby" sleep his way home. The drive was a bit rough for him and tiring (even though he slept all the way) he was in a lot of pain when we arrived in Idaho Falls. As soon as we walked into the house, I got him set up in bed, administered his pain and nausea meds, then he fell fast asleep again.

My sister brought the kids home around 8:00pm, and I took them up to see Matt in our room. My sister and mom showed them pictures of Matt earlier that day so they knew what to expect. Both boys gave him a kiss and hug, said I love you and quietly walked out (I sure missed those kids).

Matt slept until he awoke at 12:30am, thinking it was 2:30am. His mom checked on him and he seemed good. We're always worried when he gets up to use the restroom by himself and secretly watch and wait for him to make sure he's ok. He hates being baby sat, but it comes with the territory of brain surgery. I set my alarm for 1:30am to give him his pain meds again, refill his water, put crackers by his bed, and get him ice cold gatorade. As I'm typing his request, I remember earlier in the day when he felt well enough to sit up and read part of the blog. He responded with,"I sound like a really bad patient.", and my response back was that I was just the journalist and reported what I heard and saw, right of free speech.

So, here I am at 2:35am up and can't sleep, but my "baby" is back fast asleep. I will continue to keep this blog updated with Matt's progress until he is well enough to come visit you all in person. Then it will go back to being just our family blog. We might have a short road (positive side of me) or a long road (negative side of me) to recovery. It is all up to Matt's brain and body. We have to take it day by day and can not rush anything, the outcome of all this looks amazing though. The updates won't be coming as much (like the 3 or 4 a day) but will trickle off to maybe one a day (I'm shooting for heading back to work Thursday), then maybe one every two days. We'll see how the progress goes. So, to those that have been tuning in to the Days of Our Lives featuring the Mikkelson's; we are no longer primetime and have been cut from the line-up. We, again, can not thank you all enough for the love and prayers you all sent us. Whether from Idaho, Utah, California, Florida, Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and any other state I missed, we felt your support and know more than ever now how lucky we are to be surrounded by the best group of friends and family. We wouldn't trade you all for a million dollars, even after having brain surgery.

Tuesday Update #3 - January 22, 2013

The battle wound. We counted 40 staples.

The unveiling (dun, dun, dun)

 Walking the stairs with the therapists.

 This is the first picture he where he was smiling and probably the first time he'd smiled in 5 days. You can tell he's feeling much better today. Must be that he is going home.

Matt and Vince comparing battle wounds in the picture below.

We have officially been given the word that we get to go home today!! Not sure when, but today. The physical therapist cleared him after he climbed a few steps. The neuro nurse came in and removed his bandages which show some pretty good battle wounds. We are waiting for pharmacist and discharge nurse to arrive shortly. We've been given a list of instructions on how to care for our patient. His staples can be removed in 10 days following surgery which is this weekend. He will be on somewhat bed rest for a week or two to allow his body more time to heal (he did just have brain surgery), and he still needs to be cautious of his sodium levels and lots of other minor details to make sure we don't end up back in the ER at home.