Best Possible Outcome (photo's not for the squeamish)

That was quick! Sherri and were home by 7;00 PM (thought she had to do another hour at Walgreen for a prescription..

Here is the latest, Friday afternoon, I went to my primary here in Bellingham and had these staples removed. As you can see there is some swelling on the inside of the incision area. This is the surgical site. After the staples were removed, the swelling started to increase. I told Sherri and Dana that I thought I might have a CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid) leak.

Sherri , My son Dana and gathered Saturday evening and determined that it might be a good idea to mark the edge of the swelling area in order to determine if and how quickly it was continuing. Nice line job Dana! As you can see in this shot, an area in font of my ear had started to drain.. and drain it did until Sunday morning when it literally had been running down my neck, and dripping off my chin all night. We called Swedish Neuroscience who told us that w should come in to have it checked.

So here I am with Sophie the Chocolate Lab in the back on our way. I needed to keep tissue in place to absorb the fluid as it ran out.. My sister-in-law Jodie' long time friend, Marilyn was kind in taking us to Swedish on her way home
.

My nurse Erica checking the situation..

And her handy work to catch the leaks... very pretty!

So, end of the story today is the best possible outcome.. After the possibilities of lumbar spinal drains, re-opening my head to fix the leak.. it was determined that we should simply sew shut the leak and send me home!. Yeah.. so after and a very painful stitching job (with no local anesthesia because of the close proximity of CSF) we were on our way home!