Horner's syndrome

Dr. Scaife came in last night with his whole slew of surgeon wannabes and informed us that the surgery had most likely given Brynlee Horner's syndrome. I don't know if it is fair to say the surgery gave it to her, or it might be more accurate to say that the surgery irritated her Horner's syndrome. So let me explain this as best as I understand it - but this could be wrong. Oftentimes when neuroblastoma is near the spinal cord as Brynlee's is, it can develop out of the parasympathetic nervous system, which these nerves or nerve endings are near the vertebral bodies. The parasympathetic nervous system controls the eyelids from drooping and the dilation of the eyes. So either Brynlee's cancer is irritating the nerves or the surgery caused irritation or they could have even damaged it when they did the biopsy. So Brynlee's right eye, which is the side of the body that her cancer is on, is having problems with drooping and dilation. This could correct on its own or it might not, but there is nothing that we can do to fix it. This also is why Brynlee sweats on the left side of her face and her left arm and not her right arm, so we know that she has had problems with this before, but it just hasn't demonstrated itself in this way before aside from the first time she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. 

Blair started looking through pictures from the first time we went through treatment, and he noticed that her right eye was drooped then as well. She was asleep so much the first time we did this because she was constantly sedated, so I don't really remember it, but you can definitely see a droop in the pictures. It seemed to correct itself the first time, so we are hoping that it will correct or at least improve this time. Honestly, this is frustrating to me. I am still coming to terms with her spinal cord injury from the first time, and now another physical problem has presented and I'm not happy about it. This doesn't seem quite fair. Cancer sucks for so many reasons!

Anyway, Dr. Scaife's surgeon wannabes came back later last night and removed Brynlee's chest tube. That was somewhat entertaining to watch, but thankfully Brynlee was super patient with them and didn't give them any trouble as they were having enough trouble on their own. 

Today has been quiet. Dr. Wright came in this morning during rounds and explained the Horner syndrome thing to me and then she had her chemo around 11:30. She has been snoozing, although it took about 1-1/2 hours to get her to settle down in her bed to take a nap. 

Brynlee gets to have a sleepover with me tonight, and I am a little bit nervous as it is my first night sleeping over in the hospital with Brynlee - well, aside from when she was born. However, they brought in a couch to her room today, so I am glad that I have that to sleep on rather than the pull out chair thing that Blair has been dealing with. Hoping I get some sleep tonight.