Results from Doctors Appointment

Well I have great news, everything is looking great, my brain is healing great, and the pain has finally vanished. I’m no longer having any pain or headaches, So I’m doing 150% better and up and moving around. I’m off of my pain pills and able to get around and do the things that I’ve missed so much doing.

The only thing that I’m still having problems with right now is heat and still becoming tired quickly but thats because my bodies not use to not having the steriods in it. So I’ll give it some time and things will be looking better. My next checkup with my Neurologist is in January for my 6 months check up and I’ll have a post to let everyone know how I’m doing between then, I promise.

And Yes thank you to the staff, Dr Mark Lee, and Dr Anthony Murro at MCG (Medical College of Georgia) and for Dr Carpenter my neurophysiologist for making this all possible, and most of all the Lord above. I’m now sittin at almost 2 months and 25 days and counting being seizure free, what a burden off my shoulders

Doctor Appointment Thursday July 3rd 2008 Update

Hey everyone its me Jeremy, I’m guessing still that the surgery went well but I’m just having some of the complications, I’ve been dealing with a very serve headache and the Dr’s are a little worried about it but they allowed me to come back home but they went up on my steroids to see if we could burn the inflammation out of the brain (which is Normal they say, for people who have had brain surgery) but the only way to get rid of it is to be on high dosage of steroids, which is rough on emotions and confusions (which not like I didn’t already have due to the surgery:). If the home steroids don’t do it then I have another Check up with the Neurosurgeon on July 22 that performed the surgery and they said they will probably admit me back into the hospital when i go down there to place me back on IV (Intravenous) steroid therapy to burn the aseptic meningitis, this is inflammation of the lining of the brain (meninges) which is the same thing i was admitted for on June 13-19th after the surgery. So please keep me in your prayers and I’ll keep you updated on how things are going. Hope to talk to you soon. I just don’t understand but again I’m proud to say I’m still seizure free after the surgery that was on May 30th 2008 and I couldn’t ask for anything else. I love my doctors at MCG and now we’re just working on getting rid of the headaches and I’m a little scared, is this normal in the doctors office I had a blood Pressure of 165 over 35 I think that’s what it was, so now we’re having to watch my blood pressure and my temperature because everything seems to be missing up. Please. please please keep me in your prayers.

God Bless Always

Destruction over Walgreens

Medical Update

Just wanted to let everyone know how things have progressed. On Thursday the 12th Jeremy woke up with a very bad headache which the pain medicine would not relieve then at about 8:00 PM he started throwing up. I then took him to Cartersville Medical where the did a CT Scan which showed inflammation on the spinal fluid which replaces the area removed during surgery. We where released at 2:45 AM an told to contact Dr Lee’s office ASAP when they opened at 8:00.

Erica who is Dr Lee’s PA had given us her cell phone number when we were release after the surgery. So at 7:30AM I called her, she asked if we could go back to Cartersville, pickup the CT Scan and to head immediately back to Medical College of Georgia (MCG). When we arrived Jeremy was re-admitted with a-typical meningitis. While there he was given 2 spinal taps to release the pressure and to verify that it was not bacterial meningitis. The cultures came back with no bacteria.

On Thursday after the second spinal tap (performed on Wednesday) they released Jeremy. When we left they forgot to give us his prescription for pain medication, which I failed to notice until we got to the Marshill Walgreen’s. Due to the late hour I told Jeremy that we would simply fill the prescription that Cartersville had given us and would call Erica in the morning. Afterward I took Jeremy home and then went back to pick up the medications he was to start taking.

When I went in to Walgreen’s they informed me that the pain medicine prescription had TAMPERED WITH all over it and they would be unable to release the medications. At this time I called Jeremy to get Erica’s phone number. Rachel, Jeremy’s girlfriend was now at the house, so she brought Jeremy up to Walgreen’s. Walgreen’s REFUSED to even let me see the prescription, talk to Cartersville Medical, or to the Walgreen’s in Kennesaw. Both Cartersville Medical and Walgreen’s in Kennesaw asked for them to release the prescription back to us and they would take care of the problem for us. They still refused.

During this time Jeremy has been 6 hours with out any pain medication. I was getting highly upset, and then requested for them to call the police, if the prescription had been tampered with I wanted to speak with them. They REFUSED. Also, during this time another lady came up with a very similar issue. She had dropped off 4 prescriptions for her mother. When she got home she was taking them out of her bag when she noticed that there where only 3 in there. The pain medication was missing!!!! The same person I dropped the prescription off with informed her that according to the system she already had received the pain med’s and there was nothing they could do. I told the lady that I was having the same issue that they would not give me the pain med’s that I had a prescription for.

At this time I sent Jeremy with Rachel to Cartersville Medical. I then informed Walgreen’s (which it was about 30 min after their closing time) that I would not leave until I spoke with the police. At that time they agreed to call just to have me escorted off the property. I told them no, I would be pressing charges. When the police arrived, at 11:30, he was unable to determine if the prescription was tampered with or not. THANK GOD!!!!
Because he then told me if it had been verified that I would be the one arrested. At that point I was allowed to leave to go to the hospital to be with Jeremy.

When I got there I explained what had happened at Walgreen’s and they told me that if the prescription had been copied that it would say INVALID not tampered with. When we left the hospital I went straight to Walgreen’s in Kennesaw. They filled the prescription then made a copy of it for me.
Written all over the paper is INVALID INVALID INVALID. On Friday morning the head manager for Marshill called me saying that they were sorry and that the girl would be reprimanded.

So as you can tell the saga continues….. I shall keep you all informed.

Again thanks for the continued prayers and well wished. They all mean so much to both me and Marcus and especially Jeremy.

Love
Di

Brain Surgery and Return to MCG

Good evening everyone, I hope to find everyone doing as well as I am. If it weren’t for the grace of the lord, the wisdom of excellent and spectacular doctors at MCG (Medical College of Georgia) which include Dr. A. Murro *Adult Neurology* Dr. G. Lee *Neuropsychologists*, Dr. M. Lee *Neurosurgery*, P.A. E. Doster, *Physician Assistant*

Many of you know that I had an Anterior Temporal Lobectomy on Friday May 30th 2008 due to intractable epilepsy and mesial temporal lobe sclerosis due to viral encephalitis at a yr old. After a quick 4 hr surgery and an excellent surgery I was out and doing good with no seizures reported like they had planned for, they had spoke with my parents and told them to expect the worse seizure ever about 30mins after my surgery was completed but here we were and nothing, no seizures, no aura’s nothing. So everything was looking great, the only thing I had was a little bit of general anesthesia side effects, which caused me to go through some heavy vomiting while coming off of anesthesia.

Once I came out of west 8 recovery while the brain was able to stable and make sure bleeding was under control, I started developing some nasty bruising around the right eye which is normal due to the area of the brain that they removed, Pictures are here Jeremy’s Post Anterior temporal Lobectomy Pictures if you would like to view them, “talking about a black eye” I have to say that was my worse black eye I’ve ever had. But I can deal with the black eye since I’m not having seizures anymore. I was released from the hospital on Thursday June 5th, 2008 to go back home after the surgery.

On Thursday June 12th, I woke up with neck pain and a severe headache and none of the Pain medication from the hospital would relieve any of the pain. At about 8:00 pm that night I started throwing up, which is when my parents notified MCG and were told to get me to the ER, which is where they did a CT Scan which showed inflammation on the spinal fluid and some blood which they said was from post surgical changes, which replaces the area removed during surgery. We where released at 2:45 AM on the Friday the 13 and told to contact Dr Lee’s office in Augusta ASAP when they opened at 8:00am

Erica who is Dr Lee’s PA had given us her cell phone number when I was released after surgery. So at 7:30am my parents called her, and she asked if my mom could go back to Cartersville Medical and pickup the CT Scan and to leave immediately back to MCG. When we arrived, I was re-admitted with Aseptic Meningitis. While there I was given 2 Spinal taps (lumbar punctures) to release the pressure and to verify that it was not bacterial meningitis. The cultures came back with no bacteria so everything came back to Meningeal Irritation which is a common word for Aseptic Meningitis – Aseptic meningitis is an illness characterized by serious inflammation of the linings of the brain (ie, meninges), usually with an accompanying mononuclear pleocytosis.

Thank You for all your prayers and blessings

I want to thank everyone for the prayers and I am on recovery and proud to say that since the surgery I am 100% seizure free and doctors are saying the surgery was 100% success. Thank you to the lord above and again to the doctors and staff at MCG (Medical College of Georgia) in Augusta, GA

I’ll keep everyone updated as I return for my checkups to MCG (Medical College of Georgia) which fall on July 8 for Mark Lee my first appointment with Neurosurgery, and then July 3rd with Dr Murro to discuss medication to see what we’re going to do about them.

Photos from Brain Surgery

Hey everyone I’m home from Right Anterior Temporal Lobectomy, I’m still laying around in bed, cause spinal fluid hasn’t been reproduced completely yet. so I still get dizzy and lightheaded and fatigue very quickly. But on the other side, the surgery I have to say has made me feel 150% times better of another Human adult, we went into the OR room saying this is the end of my whole life, and came out of the recovery celebrating like it was a whole new life, of new wonders , adventures, and a lot to be accomplished.

I had an Allergic reaction to General Anesthesia which caused me not be able to keep any food, pain medications, or anti-seizure medications once I was starting to wake up from anesthesia. But I have to say the only thing that affected me was constantly vomiting, and also me laying on the right side of my head at night while I was trying to sleep, which made all of the blood flood to the right side of my head and then gave me a black eye. But Everything else is good now, they said that the surgery went great, the anesthesia allergic reaction was just something that happens to a lot of people. After the 72 hrs of allergic reaction I finally was able to hold down food, pain and home meds, so I talked to my Doctor (Dr. Lee and Dr. Whicherd’s) for the first time and he said even with all of the reactions to the anesthesia, that the surgery looked like a 100% success due to the fact that I hadn’t had a seizure from all of the brain going through the surgery of trauma, and that the seizure free rate looked to be from 85% to now 100% because I hadn’t been able to hold my seizure meds down with all of the vomiting from the anesthesia but everything looks good, the brain is stable.

Below are some pictures from the time my parents got to seen me and when i Started to wake up. I hope you like thses. comment on them and let me know, and again people if you have nothing better to say don’t say it. I’ve had a lot of comments about you whou feel bad about the surgery “and yes I understand that the surgery can go a lot of different ways, all depending on the doctor, the patient and the history of the epilepsy” but don’t place your feelings on my personal blogs, I do apologize.

May god help you find the will and courage to become stronge one day and find the right doctor that will fight for you ability to be seizure free because we all have the right to be seizure free.

I also want to thank Rachel (My baby) for standing beside me this whole time, I know I’ve gotten a little rough since the surgery, unbearable at times. and I promise you I’m working on all of it. We’ll make it through this. and same goes to my parents. family, and the church families that have helped support me through these times.

In Jesus Chris!!!!

Jeremy

Brain Surgery Day has Arrived

Well its finally here, I’m in Augusta, at the Medical College of Georgia for my surgery tomorrow, to have my RTL removed. The day has been pretty good, first I had Pre-Op, meeting Dr Lee’s partner that wil be assisting in the surgery, while I was meeting with Dr Lee’s partner, we found out that I have a heart murmur – which results from narrowing or leaking of valves or the presence of abnormal passages through which blood flows in or near the heart. We also met with the Anesthesiologist that will be overseeing my care while I’m under anesthesia. I have to report to surgery at 10:30 in the morning (Friday, May 30th) and Doctors are saying that the surgery time is approx. 4 hours, but I will be out for 4 1/2 hrs – 6 hrs.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and blessings that they’ve sent me, and as soon as I’m out of surgery and up and walking, I’ll post again to let everyone know how i’m doing. My girl friend Rachel will be taking pictures of me, so I’ll have pictures to post also, so you’ll have something to see, and I’ll have hopefully my first videocast.
God Bless,

Jeremy

Surgery is Scheduled

Hey everyone, I just walked in from Augusta, and MCG after my PET scan and 2^nd consultation with Dr. Lee, and I’m glad to say we have great news, the PET/CT scan showed no damage in the FL just as we expected and that the RTL has completely stopped metabolizing sugar, which means there’s no activity in that area of the brain. We now have a surgery date for Friday, May 30^th, 2008, but I have to be at MCG on Thursday, May 29^th, for Pre-Ops, physical, and to meet the Anesthesiologist, who will be handling my care during the surgery.

If you would like to view a live webcast of the Temporal lobectomy you can go to OR-Live.com and you’ll need to register, once you register, look under previous webcast, browse by specialty, Neurological/Neurosurgical, and go to March 1st 2006 for Temporal Lobectomy.