March 28, 2006
March 28, 2006 | Updates
It’s been a long day, and I’m pooped, but I just can’t wait to post today’s results! Samuel had an MRI today. They sedated him around 11:30 am and he slept until about 5:30 pm. The nurses and I just couldn’t wake him! And they wouldn’t let him leave until he was awake, so it was a long wait. But we were able to get a hearing test called an ABR done and his pump refilled while he was out cold. So that was nice.So the results. Well, the ABR is a test to see if sound waves are going through the ears and through the brain stem. Samuel’s test showed that both his ears are functioning completely normal and the information from them is reaching his brain. Yippee! I would have guessed that he could hear just fine because we’ve seen a lot of situations where he shows that he does, but it was nice to have it confirmed.
The MRI also showed positive things. It looked better than his previous MRI done 2 days after the accident. The radiologist that read the MRI does not know Samuel. And his assessment was that Samuel has a SLIGHT brain injury confined to the putamen and caudate (part of the basil ganglia) portions of his brain. These areas control motor function. His ventricles (the portion of our brains that is filled with fluid) showed a SLIGHT increase in size near the caudate and some slight lighter shading in part of the putamen, indicating that those portions of the brain have had some cell loss. But the entire rest of the brain seemed to have returned to NORMAL! Did you get all those great words in there? SLIGHT! NORMAL!
Our neurologist also went over the results. He said it seemed strange that the damage to Samuel’s brain was so focused since his entire brain was without oxygen. But he confirmed that most of his brain looks completely normal. His ventricles are only slightly enlarged near the motor portions of the brain and even then, it is very slight. The neurologist actually scrolled through all the scans 3 times before he was able to pinpoint what the radiologist had seen. The damage in the caudate shows up as a slight decrease in mass and the putamen has small portions that are just a little lighter in color than the rest of the brain. This indicates that the cells there aren’t quite as dense as in other portions of the brain, so some cells have been lost. But his overall assessment was this: first, he never expected Samuel’s MRI to look as good as it did; second, there had been no additional damage or brain shrinkage since his first MRI; and last of all, overall his MRI was VERY PROMISING! Did you get those last words? VERY PROMISING! His neurologist said he wouldn’t dare venture to say what Samuel will or won’t be like in the future, but he couldn’t have asked for a better MRI considering what he has been through.
After all was said and done, I summed it up this way. Basically, Samuel’s brain looks perfectly normal except for a slight loss of cells in the portion of the brain that controls motor function. And even that area shows very little damage. So for spending 20 minutes in a canal, Samuel’s brain is amazingly intact. The neurologist fully agreed!
WOW! That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. I can tell you that Samuel can see, that he can hear, and that he understands what we are saying and tries to respond and interact with us. But it is so very nice to have it confirmed. And who knows, maybe with a little hyperbarics and a lot of hard work and therapy, some of those dead brain cells can be replaced with the stem cells we are stimulating and we can bridge the gaps in his brain and bring him back to us. We can only hope that’s what God has in mind for him because it won’t happen unless He does. But it was a VERY encouraging day!
Love,
The Jewkes
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