In Luke's follow-up appointment, 8 months after his Chiari Decompression surgery, Dr. Mark R. Iantasco's first words to us were "I've seen the images and you will be pleased." The images he was referring to, of course, were the MRI images of Luke's neck and upper spine. What he displayed was the decompression of Luke's lower brain that was still in tact...meaning the space that he created was still allowing good flow of spinal fluid between brain and spinal chord. Even more exciting was the cyst inside his spinal chord was 95% dissipated.
We exhaled with relief and expressed our gratitude...
"Luke" I said...
"Do you remember this gentleman?"
Luke spied him for a moment then shook his head in affirmation
"He's the one that saved your life!"
What does one say when there is not enough to say?? We kept expressing our thanks and he said we wouldn't need an MRI every six months. We didn't even need it for a few years. Rhonda and I were extremely worried about putting Luke through MRIs twice a year. In the MRI today, he almost set the record for NOT waking out of anesthesia. I told the nurses that wasn't the record I wanted to see set. They removed his IVs so he wouldn't see them when he woke up. But when his heart rate kept dropping into the hi 40s and lo 50s and he was in such a deep sleep that he wouldn't wake up, they put the IV back in. Was it scary? Yes, a little ...when they start saying this isn't normal, you can't help to start thinking of those exceptions. Thankfully, no record was set by Luke this day!
Next appointment is in 1 year!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
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