Quick Friday Update

Today was a relatively quiet day compared to yesterday. Isabella woke up around 5am complaining of another headache so they gave her a dose of morphine which allowed her to get back to sleep. During the course of the day, she continued to have more headaches and got more morphine which pretty much knocked her out for most of the day. At one point, she did wake up and was fully engaged with her grandparents who had come down to visit. But she was only engaged for about 20 minutes before going back to sleep exhausted. Around 7pm, Isabella woke up and again was more talkative. Now when I say she's talkative, I mean she'll say a few words at a time, or a complete sentence, but it's not like she is carrying on a conversation. Even so, this is way better than she was even yesterday when she could only manage grunts and cries. What this does show is that the steroids may be helping to reduce some of the pressure from the speech areas in her brain which is allowing her to speak again. Although we are encouraged by the progress, we are still very concerned, especially since she is still complaining of the headaches, so we will continue with the steroids for a couple more days.

Another encouraging sign is that Isabella drank really well today and ate her first real food for the first time in two days when she ate part of a tuna fish sandwich. We were really concerned that her eating and swallowing were being affected by the tumor, but she was able to eat with no problems. We hope that this trend continues so she builds up her energy and strength. We also hope that we won't need to have her use a feeding tube.

So that's it for today, a relatively modest update compared to yesterday's epic saga. On Saturday, Isabella will have her siblings come and visit which always perks her up.

Have a great weekend everyone.