I Have Not Forgotten...

Yes, it has been a LONG time since I last blogged...

No, it is not that I have lost interest already...

... Actually, things have been unusually hectic around here. My sister, let's call her "Lissy Lucy," had surgery yesterday. Let me back pedal a bit...

Lissy Lucy is 24 years old, but mentally averages at a 5 year old level. She has Double Cortex Syndrome and a significant seizure disorder. She has had the hemispheres of her brain separated (Corpus Callosotomy). She has been on every anticonvulsant medication known to man (and some that were only experimental) all in a futile attempt to control the approximately 150 seizures she has every month. Her latest issue, and definitely her most significant issue, has been the discovery of her heart involvement with some seizure activity. Lissy Lucy's heart was found to stop beating... not good. Not good at all.

With one foot already in her grave, her doctors decided to try placing a pacemaker in her chest/heart to trigger heartbeats when her rate falls below 60 beats per minute. This is the surgery she had yesterday.

Last evening, we found that the pacemaker works, as Lissy Lucy decided to take it for a test run, quite a few times. Very cool that it worked! BUT...

Lissy Lucy is now noted to stop breathing and drop her blood oxygen levels dangerously low with these seizures. Their is no "pacemaker" for this; no instant fix. Now we worry about the cummulative effects of her brain having all these moments of oxygen deprivation... further brain damage, loss of abilities, loss of quality of life...

Please keep Lissy Lucy in your thoughts and prayers...