Daniel's Consult

The ugly bump pointing down on this image is his aneurysm

After talking with the surgeon yesterday, we were relieved to learn that Daniel will have the less invasive surgery on Oct. 9th. This is the one where they put a catheter in via the femoral artery, then thread a titanium coil half the width of a hair up into the aneurysm until it is filled with the stuff.  The idea is that the coil will be so packed in there it will stop blood flow, and the blood vessel will, if it behaves well, create a new blood vessel wall and totally annex the aneurysm.

She said that this option and the through-the-skull clamping both have about 5% risk of some unpleasant result, either minor or major, but from what I've read this has nicer outcomes. Plus, the recovery time is much speedier this way. If things go well, he could be released the following day.  If they have to put in a stent, and they won't know that for sure til they get in, then it would be two days in the hospital. But with even with the stent, she felt that he could return to normal activity after three weeks, once the femoral artery had healed from the incision.

Just so I'm not the only one to remind him: he isn't supposed to lift more than 5lbs, and he has to limit himself to a brisk walk.

We felt very informed. The surgeon spent half an hour explaining things. We were a little late for our appointment in the Infectious Disease (ID) clinic, so we rushed over there and sat down. Then it slowly dawned on me that we were in the *Infectious* Disease waiting room, so I tried very hard not to touch anything.

Daniel's ID doctor was delighted to see us. He spent an hour and fifteen minutes going over Daniel's lyme with great enthusiasm. At one point we thought he even got a little giddy about it. We figured he was glad to see someone who did not have HIV and was really recovering; plus Daniel's lyme is so 'textbook' that they all seem thrilled about it.

I'm thrilled that the recovery is textbook too. The one course of antibiotics will have routed it, though he has some post-lyme symptoms of pain in his right forearm and wrist, plus the extreme exhaustion he faces in the early evening. The doctor seemed convinced this would dissipate, and he said that the surgery date would be fine. He'll check in with us when Daniel is back at Penn next month.

Thanks once again for the ongoing prayers!