Friday, October 16, 2009

Neurosurgery Update

The visit to the neurosurgeon was rather..... well, scary. It wasn't what he said rather than the apprehension in his voice and body language. The neurosurgeon we see is at the Children's Hospital in the next city which is about 50 miles from us. When Randy was in the NICU, he saw the neurosurgeon at the Children's Hospital here. The neuro here went out of the country for two weeks, and Randy had a malfunction. He was sent by ambulance to this other city for a shunt revision. The plan was for him to do his post op follow with this doctor, then be released back to the neuro in our city. Well last year, randy had 10+ revisions. He was getting a revision every 2-3 weeks; sometimes two revisions within the same hospital stay.

The neuro did not was to release him until he was stable. It was October by the time this happened. At this point Randy had more care under the neuro in the next city, than by the neuro in our city so we kept the care there.

Well this neuro is really good. He is young, but not scary new. He is confident, but not cocky. He is aggressive, but not reckless. And he really knows my son well. He stops to talk to him if we see him walking through the hospital for another appointment. But at yesterday's visit he seemed.........scared.

He needs to do a shunt revision. He says that the ventricle is just too large to do nothing. He is amazed that Randy is not feeling sick (this was the way he was for the June revision). But if you remember, Randy has a catheter in his right ventricle that is trapped by blood vessels. If Randy were to get a shunt infection post surgery, all of the shunt with the catheters would need to removed in order to effectively treat the infection. He said that there is a great chance of bleeding and stroke with trying to remove this trapped catheter.

So he is sending him back to the ENT to have him check his ears VERY carefully. He then wants to get another scan in two weeks (I think he is praying for a miracle where he does not have to operate). If the ventricle grows or remains the same, he will operate. If it is smaller, he will just watch it.

Pray with me for a miracle.

2 comments:

  1. praying hard! hang in there Randy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So is he more concerned with it getting infected post-op (and needing to turn it into an EVD) or with having to do a revision at all? Marley had his shunt get infected with his last revision and it was NOT FUN AT ALL! When they're tiny it's not so hard to have the EVD, but when they are bigger and wanting to move around it's really hard because you can't do anything with an EVD...I hope he's ok! Let me know when the doctor decides what to do! (By the way, what's the docs name?)

    ReplyDelete