Advice on recovery after cranioplasty

[pozza40]

Hello everyone, I hope everyone is keeping as well as possible. I haven’t posted for a little while, it’s been a period of readjustment for us as we get used to my husband being home and all the changes.

He is going into hospital today for his cranioplasty tomorrow, we are all extremely anxious about this. We are hoping it will help with the constant headaches he has and that it will help with his recovery. We are 16 months post his stroke after aneurysm surgery and he still cannot maintain sitting balance on his own.if he is put in a sitting position by physios he can hold it for maybe 30 seconds then his concentration goes and he just falls to one side and cannot get himself back again.

They get him to practise standing by putting his feet on a Ross return and using his good arm,they help him to stand up by locking out his legs but he only manages about 10 seconds and sits back down. Doing maybe 2 of these stands in one day will completely wipe him out and he will sleep for hours after. The next day he will be more pain.

Can anyone offer advice, will cranioplasty make this better or after 16 months is this as good as he will get. So worried all the time, it’s exhausting.

[New_beginning]

I have everything crossed for your husband today, going all well as previous post was positive with response, it may take another few months adjusting and you may find that progress will still occur but as we know it still takes time.

With me I review progress every 3-4 months this helps with the pace and can help me with that inner positively when days, weeks same old and difficult to see differences as we know during this now moment when everything seems grim, can be difficult monitoring progress daily/weekly reason I do every few months to see consistency with it too.

Lovely to hear from you, look forward to next update x

[Juniorbhoy]

Hi pozza40

Good luck for your husbands operation.

My husband did not cope well before Cranioplasty, ended up paralysed down one side. Lost use of arm & leg and fell a number of times as his brain shifted quite a bit! The decision was made to carry out Cranioplasty after only 8 weeks after removal of part of skull.

After operation he got full use of his leg back almost immediately but had to get Physio for arm which took a number of months and extremely hard work. 18 months later he has almost 95% muscle strength back in arm & shoulder.

I hope & pray the operation is a success for your husband and stops the headaches also. Lots of love to you & your family x