Tuesday, March 10th

Dr. Silva alerted Donna about Tim's brain pressure reaching 80 during the night. They did a CT Scan, and changed out the sensor just to make sure they were getting an accurate reading. His brain pressure stayed in the 30's-40's, and would not go down with the Manitol (meds for brain swelling). At 4:00pm, Dr. Silva told Donna that surgery is now necessary to avoid any brain damage from a brain that is swelling with no place to go. By 8:00pm, Donna gave consent for them to perform surgery on Tim. They will be making a horseshoe shaped incision on the left side of his head, and removing a circle shaped piece of skull to allow the brain to swell out. The scalp will be stitched back together, and the removed skull portion will be frozen.

The surgery began at 10:15pm, and ended at 11:30pm. Dr. Silva told Donna: that the surgery went well, the brain is soft where it needs to be, there was a small hematoma (blood) on the brain that he carefully removed, that he will be in the ICU at least one week, it was good that we waited to do the surgery (it allowed the brain to reduce in swelling, so it would not "mushroom" out during surgery, and to expect the skull plate to be out for a few months.