Emily is doing great! They are at the location of the AVM. The doctor is beginning to work on it.

The surgeon came out at 9am and told us that everything was looking good to begin surgery.

Emily’s motor functions are right on top of the AVM, and are at risk. This is something that may require rehab, but obviously not the only concern on the surgeons mind.

There has been no bleeding, seizures, or glue loss (common risks) since the embolization last night.

The surgeon needs to work on the front of the trianglular-shaped AVM, which is not fully occluded yet, then he will begin the removal process.

Emily should be heading to surgical prep now (or soon). Pray for peace of mind for her and Dan. It sounds like there will be updates from the surgical room throughout the day, and I will post those if they are shareable.

From Dan overnight:

2:18am:

Emily is having a difficult time falling asleep. Where the glue has filled up the AVM has begun to swell causing pain. She’s very restless tonight. Can’t get comfortable at all. The area on her leg where they went in to embolize is sore and bleeding. Although I think that may have stopped now.

She’s on a steroid to help control the inflamation in her brain. The inflamation is also causing some droop on the left side of her face and weakness in the left arm/hand. The doctors want not overly concerned beleiving it is because of the swelling.

She’s also had some twitches tonight which is new. They started for short stints around the outside (skin level, not inside) of the AVM. A few minutes later she was flinching her eyebrows. These lasted for awhile this time. And came back frequently. She’s on more antiseizure medication and it seems like that has stopped. The nurse was not worried about the twitching because Emily was still able to focus with her eyes and think relatively clearly.

Surgery begins at 7:30am December 3. Can go for 6 hours or up to 24.

I know not many are awake but if you happen to be please pray that she can get some rest tonight/this morning. Also, whether you can attend or not, our family and friends would appreciate you prayers and the prayers of others.

This will be looping through at the church for the prayer vigil – lots of good things to pray about.

Here’s the latest from Dan (Wednesday, 7:40pm)…

Emily got into her new room from recovery about an hour ago. She is sedated so she isn’t saying much.

There is some drooping in the left side of her face and weakness overall. She will be on steroids to make sure her area that was glued does not become inflamed. There was a risk of a bleed because of the glue but the post operation CT scan showed that that is not an issue.

I saw the results from the Functional MRI and the old CT scan compared to tonight’s CT scan. They said it’s medium to large. But it looked pretty big. They could “slice” the brain from bottom up into 20 slides. I think the AVM covered about 8-10 of the slides. It goes into the middle of her brain which is why the blood ran down her spine causing the pain in her butt and legs last week.

The embolization went “as planned.” She is in some pain. Because she’s so groggy it’s difficult to tell where. She is on light pain meds but she has to stay with it this evening. They are going to be very strict on hourly neuro exams.

The incision will be “lateral,” or straight up and down. It will be approx 1 cm wide. This is easier to recover from. The surgeon also believes it’s just far enough back that he won’t have to cut away too much muscle for her face. Because he won’t be cutting away too much muscle the recovery from that alone should only be a couple weeks.

We will be meeting with the surgeon again this evening. If he brings up anything new I will pass it along so we all have specifics to pray about.

Thank you all.