A More Aggressive Approach to Healing

Ryan's surgery lasted nearly 4 hours and was a success. He is now back in his room in the ICU recovering while doctors and nurses continue to monitor his condition. While the fact that they had to perform surgery on Ryan's head sounds frightening, it is not out of the ordinary that with a brain trauma and sustained high ICP they would do such a procedure. It is important to understand that this is not a sign that Ryan's condition has become more severe over the past couple of days, rather the underlying problem never changed and all we discovered was that the initial less aggressive (but safer) approach of medicating did not work (in much the same way that the sedatives were not strong enough to lower his ICP which prompted his doctors to induce a coma, his surgery was the next step if the coma medications did not work).

All of our initial reactions were to see this as a major setback and as a sign that any progress he had made over the last week was lost when really that is not accurate. The other way to look at the surgery is that it is better to do it to confidently relieve the pressure in his head rather than wait and hope it will go down while on the meds. The doctors have characterized this as really just a more proactive strategy to fix the same problem Ryan has had all along rather than a sign that his brain is getting worse. While the doctors and all of us were encouraged and hopeful at the news over the weekend that his pressure had responded well to the medically induced coma and disappointed to learn that the pressure had returned after several hours, we must continue to remember that Ryan has a long road ahead of him and will need all of us to stay positive and supportive no matter what news comes with each day.

Physically, Ryan looks no different than before the surgery. If anything, his skin looks and feels healthier and is finally normal/natural looking. He got a shave and they removed the remaining half of his hair, so it's more even. The pressure is coming back down as a result of his surgery, and right now his vitals are normal. He will remain heavily sedated for a while, although they're taking him off the some of the stronger medications over the next couple of days. Once again, updates will probably be infrequent and relatively similar. His condition continues to be very serious, obviously, but he has the good fortune to be in the care of well trained medical staff with the proper tools, medications, and procedures at their disposal along with a worldwide network of people who care about him all pulling for small but steady successes over the next weeks and months.

Please think about you favorite Ryan memory tonight/tomorrow, I promise he will get the message. In that spirit, we will continue to post our favorite pictures of Ryan.