All,

I went to check on Marco’s situation last night. As I mentioned on the last report, Marco had a surgery to put the occipital bone back in place on Tuesday this week. The surgery went well and he was kept on the ICU for recovery. Sometime during Wednesday Carmen and Dana (Marco’s sister) noticed something was not right. They noticed that the tube from the head was not draining any fluid as they thought it was supposed to work. The nurse told them they had just removed all fluid from the bag where the tube drains into and that is why they didn’t see any fluid in it. Carmen later told the nurse the same thing and she replied that sometimes the draining comes at a slower pace. Carmen told the nurse that she noticed that Marco’s throat was swelling and the nurse replied this time saying that was normal, that after being on bed for as long as Marco had been the throat starts to swale more than before. Basically, any concern that Carmen and Dana brought up was met with a “that is normal, don’t worry”. Well, as you can guess, some problems arose.

Later on Wednesday evening Marco’s throat swollen up to the point that had difficulty breathing normally. The doctors placed a tube down his throat again to help him breath; Marco was also highly sedated to keep him calm and give him time to recover. The doctor’s changed the draining tube from his head down to his spinal cord, somewhere around the back. When I was at the hospital I was told that the draining was working fine and that the inflammation on the throat was subsiding. The nurse told me at this time they are keeping Marco at a very low room temperature, highly sedated, with the tube down his throat, and under the constant watch of the ICU nurses. I asked how long this status was going to be kept and she said “until the doctor tells us to do otherwise”; so, basically we don’t know for how long he is going to be kept on this situation.

Marco’s friends and family are sad to see these events develop this way when the impression we all had is that Marco was doing so good that he would be able to walk on his own in a short period of time. A friend of Marco compared his current status to the first day in the hospital but I disagree on this. It is definitely a setback on Marco’s recovery but this time it seems to be more under control and more than anything induced by the doctors to give Marco time to recuperate from the swelling and lack of draining of the brain, nothing more. Let’s hope and pray that this setback is without major consequences and short lived.

Thanks,

Jose