A Good Visit to the Doctor

Friends and Family of Joy:  

We saw Dr. Sanchez again today.  Everything is looking good.  Her incision is healing nicely and next Tuesday they will remove the sutures.  Joy had another CT scan today to document the results of the downward adjustment to her shunt flow and it also looked good.  Her ventricles had increased in size a little, but that was what Dr. Sanchez was hoping to see.   Her infection appears to be under control and we will soon take her off the anti-biotics.

Dr. Sanchez's assistant Brenda came into the room today and asked Joy, "How are you feeling?'' Joy replied, "Okay," and nodded her head.  All of us have noticed that she is talking more and responding more appropriately to verbal queries since her surgery and shunt adjustment 8 days ago.

Her angioplasty procedure will be scheduled for sometime in the next two to four weeks. After that, there will be the procedure to fill the voids in her skull plate.  Dr. Sanchez believes the latter should be scheduled for sometime early next year.  It depends on her health, her rate of recovery and how she responds to the angioplasty procedure.

We are making slow, but steady progress. 

This weekend I will take a brief vacation and travel to San Antonio, Texas to watch my undefeated alma mater, Centre College (7-0), play the undefeated Trinity University Tigers (8-0).  I played four years of football for Centre and started every game as a wide receiver.  Last year I went back to the campus for the first time and attended my 40th reunion.  While there I watched the Homecoming football game, which re-infected my blood with football fever.  From an historical standpoint, this is the most important football game the team has played in over 50 years. (Not as important, however, as a game the team played in 1921 when they upset Harvard for the National Championship. You could look it up.)   I want to be able to brag to my teammates,  several of whom I still correspond with, that I was there when the Colonels knocked off their rival on their way to an undefeated season.  

My Aunt Janice and her husband Courtney are putting me up in San Antonio and I look forward to seeing them.  One of the first things that endeared me to  Joy when I met her in 1991 was her laugh, which was almost identical to my Aunt Janice's laugh.

I am loathe to leave Joy, but I know she is in good hands with her sister Susan and our able nurses Sue, Angela, Natalie, and Misty.

Love to all of you and yours,


Doug