I'm a neurosurgeon so I'm kinda talking out of turn but....I did rotate thru CT surgery as an intern long ago, so maybe it's still valid.Have they done a CT or MRI of his brain? If yes and it's normal, rest easy. A negative imaging study (especially MRI) rules out a stroke, which means there's little for neurology to do, other than diagnose "encephalopathy after surgery/bypass." However, if they've done no imaging, I'd consider that odd. My ICU has a low threshold to get a neurology consult and imaging, and someone having language issues and a facial droop for 5 days after heart surgery would certainly trigger it.
65M, 5'9", 140lbs, Asian / Chinese, NYC, no medications <-- My Dad's InfoI'm in a stressful medical situation right now, and need some help / advise. My dad had an emergency aortic valve and ascending aorta replacement 5 days ago due to aortic dissection 7 days ago. He was in the OR for ~11 hours because they first attempted to repair a part of the ascending aorta, took him off bypass, saw that things weren't going well, then put him back on bypass again to do a more aggressive procedure of replacing the aortic valve and the ascending aorta including the arch, so it was a very long amt of time on bypass.Yesterday he was moved from the Cardiothoracic ICU and into a normal hospital wing due to a bed shortage in the ICU. I've noticed since he came out of surgery that he has a facial muscular abnormality on his left side (his left mouth is slanted up) and is having difficulty speaking/writing (he is slow to utter syllables, is misspelling very easy English and Chinese words, can't pronounce English and Mandarin words to the point where it is not possible to have a conversation with him without both my mom and I guessing while he attempts to partially speak / write). The cardiology team told me yesterday that they don't think they need to bring neurology in to examine him because it may all be normal effects of the bypass. I am really worried there may be signs of a stroke (he can't read/write properly and his mouth is crooked) and I am wondering why nobody at my dad's hospital is concerned with a neuro eval. What do you think - should I push back more for a neuro eval or is this normal?