Note from Alison before Stella's Monday surgery:

27 March 2011 - from New York

Hi everyone,

I thought it was time for another update on Stella's surgical adventure.

It is now Sunday morning here in New York City, the day before Stella's second surgery.  It is a beautiful, sunny day, but very cold.  Here are a few photos of the view from Stella's hospital cot.  The river is called the East River and cuts through New York City.

Stella had a long, strong seizure last night that left her father a bit stressed out and Stella exhausted.   It took a while for the staff to give her emergency medication to stop the seizure because they weren't convinced that she was having a seizure. Ironically, we had left our emergency medication back at the flat because we didn't think we would need it here at the hospital, but we could have used it last night (or maybe the nurses would have called security on us if we tried to give our own meds!).  Stella got the medication after about 20 minutes, thanks to some yelling from Marcel ;). It appears that the big tuber on the front of her brain was the culprit behind this scary seizure.

At least now the epilepsy team will have recorded all variations of Stella's seizures which will help her treatment.

Her second surgery is at 7:30am on Monday morning.  We are stressed out about this one because the surgeon will be cutting into her brain.  Fingers crossed that there will be no complications.

A little 18 month old girl and her parents came by the hospital last Friday- she was the previous patient in Stella's cot and had undergone a similar procedure- she has something called cortical dysplasia- spots in her brain did not form properly in utero.  However, her seizures abruptly stopped after the surgeon placed the strips on her brain!  So she had no further surgery.  One week after discharge, she still has no seizures! I hope for her and her parents' sake she stays seizure free.

Her mom showed me the cuts and stitches on her daughter's head so I can get an idea of what to expect after surgery- I have to say that it looked a bit Frankenstein!  It will take some getting used to and we will definitely need to have a conversation with her older sister before letting her see the scars.

So that is about all that has been happening here, besides trying to stop Stella escaping her cot or strangling herself with all the wires connected to her body!

I will post another update after the first surgery.  

We miss all our friends in Hong Kong and can't wait to come back home!

X Alison