Surgeons Hopeful For Gifford on Day Two
Posted By thestatedtruth.com on January 10, 2011
No change is good,” says a neurosurgeon who treated the congresswoman. Doctors are monitoring her brain for swelling, which usually peaks three days after an injury.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords” condition essentially remained unchanged overnight Sunday, doctors at University Medical Center in Tucson said in a Monday news conference.
“No change is good, and we have no change,” said Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at the medical center and one of the neurosurgeons who cared for Giffords after she was shot Saturday. “She is still following basic commands, and her CAT scans are showing no progression of swelling. Every day that goes by, we are slightly more optimistic.”
Lemole said swelling of the brain typically peaked on the third day after an injury, which would be Tuesday. After that, “we can breathe a collective sigh of relief.”
Surgeons removed most of the left side of her skull Saturday to prevent swelling from compressing her brain and cutting off the flow of blood to her brain stem, which would almost certainly be fatal.
The 9-millimeter bullet fired at her entered the back of her skull and exited through the front, passing only through the left hemisphere and, fortunately, missing the crucial area connecting the two hemispheres of the brain.
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