Back Home Again
Apr 27th, 2009 |
Hello everybody,
Finally home again! Ty and Kassie got home late Friday night, and Steve and I last night. We are slowly and quietly re-entering the home atmosphere which requires some solitude and unpacking and vacuuming!
Tyler’s stimulator unit was turned on at Dr. deLotbiniere’s office in White Plains on Friday morning April 24th. Inside Edition was there to film that session also, and we all stood around in a conference room while they did this first programming session. It consisted of turning his battery pack on and then testing each of the four sites on each of the two electrodes in his brain. So one at a time for 8 times they ramped up the voltage slowly until he indicated that he was experiencing side effects (tingling of the fingertips, cramping of his arm and leg muscles). On one side they were able to go all the way up to 4 volts without side effects. On the other side they were able to go to 2.5 volts. The surgeon and programmer were very pleased with this because it tells them what range they can work within to find the best setting for Ty. That was all they had time to do, so they sent him out the door with just one site on each electrode turned on and at a moderate voltage. The programmer told him that it was possible for this initial stage to actually make the tics worse, and if that happened he should turn the unit off. This is what he experienced on the flight home, so he did turn it off. Saturday at home, however, he turned it back on and had a really good day–very few tics.
This is just the beginning of the programming process. He will see Dr. Santiago in Spokane in the coming days and they will get down to business. So…everything is as it should be and we eagerly await the results in the coming weeks.
We will be processing all the experiences, memories, sights and sounds of this past month for a long time to come. We are so grateful to each of you for making this miracle possible for Tyler. Our confidence in God has grown, and our joy in knowing Him is deeper than ever. We eagerly anticipate “the rest of the story” for Tyler and Kassie’s life.