My Star!

Mitch is AMAZING, he has went two days without pain medicine! He swears he doesn't hurt so that is great!! Things change so fast here and I'm sure that has a lot to do with having Four team of Doctors following you! Dr. Tanaka came in with a smile on her face this afternoon and said, "Are you ready to get this done." Of course Mitch said yes and I was more like, "do you have all seizures that you need, are you sure where they are coming from, because I can tell you right now, he will NEVER do this again!" She totally understood and said very confidently that he has had MANY seizures and they are all coming from the same area of the brain, so they will do the mapping of the brain to make sure none of his motor functions are in the way and then surgery is back on for Friday! It will be late morning but that was fine with us, let's get it done! She was really more excited that the famous arm seizures he has, have been found and she knows where they are coming from And she will get rid of them for him, I just know my baby is on his way to feeling better than he has in 15 years!! He also was lucky enough to get to be a part of a newspaper article in the Columbia tribune which will come out on Saturday, his birthday! They came to do an article on nurses and all the nurses picked Mitch to be their patient! He is kinda spoiled here in the NSICU, we remember A lot of them from before and for some reason they all remember us! So that was pretty exciting too! Thanks to Erma Mattson for coming to visit and thank Shannon Luke for taking me outta the hospital to do some laundry, make a Walmart trip and grab some dinner!! We appreciate all the encouraging messages, prays and Mitch did get a card in the mail today, thanks so much Joyce Miller for the neat card, I'm impressed you got it here on flag day, and everyone really enjoyed the red, white and blue stars!! Love you all So much!! Theresa and Mitch

Feeling Better!

Mitch has had a better day today! He is still tired but he claims he has no pain and he hasn't had any type of pain medicine since last night! He is such a trooper and I am so proud of him and I just pray he is not trying to be too tough! All Doctors rounded today and Dr. Tanaka was pleased with his head and thinks it looks real good! The neuro ICU team came and they are pleased with how well he is doing and they are even wanting him to get up in a chair, so we are waiting for that! Dr. Lanigar's team was in but he wasn't able to come today and they told us Mitch is doing exactly what they want him to, he has had 7 pretty good seizures they have captured so far and many small ones. The big one seems to be coming from the same area and now they need to figure out how deep they are, with that being said we have took it that we will probably be here another week just to make sure they have all the documentation that they need. Mitch was pretty bummed but I am fine with that cause Mitch says this is it, he isn't doing any of this again and frankly I don't blame him! It is exhausting watching him have to go through all this! Yesterday was very hard to watch Dave, Mark, Tiff, Gia and Quincy leave here without us, we just miss them all so much. Thanks to Vince and Joan Wilmes for coming in and bringing Dave, Tiff and I lunch, it was awesome and also thanks for great cousins Montana and Boston Dickerson for coming in and seeing Mitch! Mitch didn't feel the best and they wanted to bring him lunch but Mitch just wasn't up for it! You guys get your behinds back over here, he is doing much better and we really enjoy the visit! Then last night we had one of Mitch's high school teacher and her husband, Jared and Bri Hunter, came and seen us and they have moved here now so hopefully they will drop in again:)! My Aunt Liz brought us lunch today on her way back home and brought us a couple bags of goodies from the VanNordstrand's, thank you guys so much, I feel like all I do is eat, eat, eat!!! So for now it is a waiting game and they want him to continue to have seizures so they can capture them. We appreciate all the messages, support and prayers you have giving us, you will never know how much we appreciate them all!!!! Love you all, Theresa and Mitch

Mitchell wants outta here!

Well Mitch hasn't let us down at all! He had a pretty sleepy day yesterday, he is in more pain than I would like to see him in but they said they really expected that. Mark, Joel, Gia and Quincy got here around 3 yesterday, it was so wonderful to have us all here! Max and Jennifer Dunlap brought us in pizza and cookies and Andy and Sara Hull sent a bag of goodies so we just stayed here in the room and ate, thank you guys so very much for doing that, it is so wonderful to have support from everyone, no dieting going on here!! Mark, Joel, Tiff and kids left about 8 and Dave took off about 8:30 so Mitch and I just were resting and going to try to get some sleep since neither of us slept much the night before. Wouldn't you know it about 9, while his nurse was getting all his vitals, Mitch starting having some pretty big seizures. His heart rate got dangerously high and he quivered alittle by 9:15, the Doctor on call showed up and she was very concerned. The monitering team had called her cause they could tell from the moniter and video, they watch of him all day and night, that he wasn't coming out of it. By 10 he had all the ativan he could have to stop the seizures and he was still seizing. I called Dave and told him to come back over, thank you Dave, and the Doctor on call had called Mitch's Dr and he really wasn't that shocked, he really feels like this is Mitch's normal! He probably does this every night, but because of the grid on his brain and the surgery it may have been alittle worse but really he doesn't think much! The on call Dr. also told us that she can tell exactly where the seizures are coming from so, We all have our fingers crossed that they will decide that Mitch needs to have surgery very soon, but who knows! This Momma is so ready for this to be over, I'm pretty sure my pacemaker is working overtime! They did tell us that Mitch did have a few spells during the day yesterday but really the night time is the very worse for him. They will have to do the grid testing to make sure none of his motor functions are coming from the same area as the seizures. We are praying very hard that there will be no other functions there cause we really don't want him to lose any of the function he has in his arm or leg. So I guess you could say that Mitch is doing exactly what we want so they can get him all fixed up! He had an ok night and we are anixously waiting for all the teams of Doctors this morning to see there thoughts on this. Thanks so much everyone for all the love, support, food and prayers we sure need them all!!!!! I will try to update again after all teams of Doctors are in. One other thing, we just found out that our cell phones won't receive calls here, we can call out but not receive, so if you would like to visit with us or Mitch please just text us and we will call you, my cell is 660-582-7064!!! Thanks again for everything, Love you all, Theresa

Hanging tough

Well night one is in the books and Mitch didn't let them down. Mitch hurts alot more this time than before, his incision is much bigger and he has really had a headache and hurts more. They are trying many different pain medicines so you would think it would make him sleepy but not so much! He went for a CAT scan at 4 am, this was to make sure the grid is placed in the correct place, and when he got back they gave him some more pain meds and he is kinda resting now. As soon as they find out if the grid is correct then they will hook him up to the machine to show the seizure activity! About 10 pm last night he started having his famous arm seizures, these are pretty rare and his nurse hadn't seen them before! Although it seems weird to pray for seizures this is what we need to pinpoint where the heck they are coming from! We are just praying that all of the different kinds he is having is coming from the same area and that it is going to be in a place that won't affect any other motor functions! If the seizures show up, like they think they will, there is a big possibility that he could have surgery Wednesday or Thursday! This would put us home much sooner than we thought but we just need to make sure that all the different kinds of seizures are caught before he has the next surgery, I don't know if Mitch will do this again and I can't say that I blame him. Thanks so much for all your continued prayers, we really appreciate the support and you all helping us get through this! If you would like to send him a card his address is University of Missouri Hospital Mitchell Schmitz NSICU Room 27 1 Hospital Dr Columbia, Missouri 65211 If you want just leave him a message on here and he will check it! His birthday is next Saturday the 18th so with your help, I am hoping to flood him with lots of birthday and get well wishes! Thanks again, we have one tough boy, Love you all, Theresa

ALL DONE!!!

We got a message at 8:30 saying surgery had started. We aren't sure if that meant they had started at 7:30 and updated at 8:30 or they had started at 8:30. We then got a message at 12:50 saying surgery would be done soon. We then met with Dr. Tanaka at 1:30. She said the surgery went as expected, there was lots of scar tissue from his previous surgeries, which she knew there was going to be. She said the incision is pretty big, they cut starting at the top center of his head all the way to the back and up and around his ear. She said his other incision had been open a lot and she needed to be more in the middle on top of his head anyway so she thought it would be best to just make a new one. She said there are less leads this time than there was last time. Last time he had 70 leads and this time there are 38 leads coming from the grid. They are grouped into 5 sets so there are only 4 leads coming out of his head. She said they will do a CAT scan tomorrow to make sure they placed the grid in the correct place and everything looks good. She said due to scheduling issues he is taken off the schedule next Friday for surgery. She said if they see as much activity as they did last time the surgery could be bumped up sooner than Friday, we were shocked as we thought she only did surgeries on Friday's so we ask her and she said she likes to only do them on Friday's but will make certain exceptions. If they don't see enough activity over the weekend but get enough next week he can be put back on the schedule for next Friday and they will have to make that decision by Thursday if that's the case, otherwise it will be the following week. He is currently in recovery, she said he had woke up a little bit but he will be there for about 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. We have decided that we are praying for him to show lots of activity over the weekend so he can get this done and hopefully get out of here! We know he is having seizures so the more he can have now the better. To pass the time today during surgery we ate, played cards, walked and did LOTS of visiting with Aunt Liz. Thanks so much for stopping on your way back to Conception to keep us entertained, and of course the homemade chocolate chip cookies, they were amazing, were meaning we've already about ate the whole batch!!! Also thanks to Randy and Sharon Luke for stopping, it was great to see you guys! Of course we had many snap chats from Gia, Quincy and many others! And or course many good laughs from Granny Kate!!! Something about hearing aids and cinnamon rolls!! Again thanks for all the prayers! Keep them coming, praying for lots of activity over the weekend!!!! Thanks Sister Tiff

Let the Waiting BEGIN!

We arrived at the hospital at 5:00 this morning, we got checked in and they took Mitch back right away to prep for surgery. We waited for them to get him ready and then we got to see him. We didn't get to see him until a little after 6:00 and Momma Bear was a little worried that her little baby told them not to let her come back! :) The prep Nurse told us surgery was expected to last 4 to 5 hours. We spoke with Dr. Tanaka's assistant Dr. Ab and he assured us that Mitch was in good hands. We told him to take as long as they needed, we were in no hurry. He said that this was their biggest surgery today so they wouldn't be in a hurry. The anesthesiologist came in and recognized Mitch right away, he said, "I think I remember you from last time." "Haven't you done this before?" We were surprised that he remembered Mitch, we do not remember him and I'm not sure why, cause he had some good stories this morning and gave us all a few laughs! He also assured us that we didn't need to worry about anything, that they would take good care of Mitch. He said he was going to worry more about the 3 of us (pointing to Dad, Mom and Myself) than he would Mitch. So reassuring that he has such wonderful Doctors taking care of him. They took Mitch down to surgery around 6:45 and told us, it was best to get something to eat right away, so we headed to the cafeteria for some breakfast. By the time we made it back upstairs around 7:30 he was in the operating room. There is a TV screen that we watch for updates and we will update you as we are updated, we didn't get many updates last time so we are likely not to get many this time. Thanks for all the prayers and support we have received, we can't thank everyone enough for all they have done for us! LOVE, Big Sister

One more week!

Well it is all getting real....one week from today and Mitch will have the grid placed on his brain and the monitors will start showing them where all these darn seizures are coming from...we hope! Mitch and I along with my awesome Uncle and Aunt, Jim and Molly, went to Columbia yesterday and he got his blood work done that they needed and he already has two bracelets on that we can't remove before surgery. Something about his blood has some antibody in it now that they needed to get blood here for his surgery! I have been trying to get everything in shape here at the house so that it won't miss me for a few weeks:)!! haha thanks so much to Tiffany and my nieces Jessie and Jill for helping me get some much needed cleaning done. It's really hard for me to get my mind set ready for this again. What all I will need, What I just want to take and what I can really do without for a few weeks! At least I have time to gather some stuff and get stuff done, cause I will never forget the mess I left 15 years ago when I left my home in a split second and was gone for many months without coming home! Thanks you all for all the kind words and continued prayers you give us, we really couldn't get through this without you all. Thanks so very much Jim and Molly for riding with us and getting our lunch yesterday, We really appreciated and enjoyed the visit with you guys so much. Love you all, Theresa