Mom's pressure is down to 1 on one of her tubes and 3 on her other tube. This is amazing news!
They want to keep the pressure below 20 to keep her from having any brain damage.
To help you understand what is happening let me explain the basic procedure. Mom has blood in her brain. To remove the blood, the doctors have cut two small holes in her skull and placed a tube that drains the fluid her body produces. They keep a steady supply of fluids going in through her IVs and keep her blood pressure at a safe, but high rate.
Her body then takes the IV fluids, reprocesses it and sends it to her brain. Because her blood pressure is slightly higher, it pushes through her brain faster and flushes out the blood that is still there.
They are quite literally working with her body to flush the brain and remove the blood.
Each tube fills a seperate container and it is amazing to see that the tube that was put in on Thursday night is draining a pale yellow fluid, while the newer one is a bright red. This means that most of the blood is out of one side of her head.
I must admit that I teared up when I saw the pressure fall to such low levels. Everyone keeps telling me that this is a long process and we will be in ICU for weeks. I know that we still have a long time to go, but to make so much progress in one day was a bit overwhelming.
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