The Latest

I wanted to clarify/correct some of the information in Ryan's last post. All of this is based on the report from Meghan, not actually talking to the doctors. Chris had a small stroke and that is why he was moved to the ICU. A stroke is an injury to the brain caused by the disruption of blood flow. They can be either thrombotic (caused by a clot that disrupts the flow of blood to an area and starves it of oxygen) or hemorrhagic (caused by bleeding from tiny vessels which injures brain tissue). The bleeding is not actually in his neck but in his brain, probably at the base in the brainstem (or possibly the cerebellum) which is why everyone was talking about his neck. It has caused a problem with his speech (just in the mechanics of him talking, not his ability to understand or create speech) and possibly some problems with his ability to swallow. This most likely was due to problems with clotting related to his low platelet count. The heparin may have contributed although they took him off as soon as his platelet count dropped so it may have worn off by the time the stroke actually happened. This is just one of those things that can happen when you don't clot normally.

He did well overnight with no evidence that the bleeding worsened. They probably have him on medicines to keep his blood pressure under tight control (too high and he may bleed again, too low and the injured area of brain won't get enough blood flow to heal) and probably some steroids to reduce inflammation in the injured brain. That's really all you can do and then you wait for the brain to heal itself. They are not letting him eat anything until he is evaluated by a speech pathologist (they do a swallow eval to make sure he can swallow without aspirating material into his lungs). I think they did the same thing when he had his cerebellar injury in St. Louis. As far as recovery goes, each person is different but most people recover at least partially and many people experience a full recovery. Because of where the stroke is, there hasn't been any involvement in his movement (other than his ability to coordinate fine motor movement like pointing and grabbing objects) so it isn't the kind of stoke with paralysis on one side or anything. Meghan said his speech is better today so that is a good sign. Meghan also says that his other counts are continuing to improve (kidney function, liver function, the ascites or fluid in his belly is less and so on) so that is all good too.

We'll keep you posted if we become aware of anything else.

Christy