Take 5.........

It's been a long week here at the Fenskes. On Wednesday, I awoke to find the back of M's head swelling yet again. In usual fashion, the pediatric neurosurgery clinic worked her in for an evaluation. Unfortunately, our primary neurosurgeon is out of the country for a month so we saw one of the two NPs. I had met one of them prior to M's last surgery and really liked her a lot. To my disappointment, she was not the one we saw. The neurosurgeon covering did not have time to see us (and when he finally did many hours later, I was not real impressed), so the resident took care of us for the most part. He is actually really good - I had my doubts last time, but after getting to know him a little better, I really like him and trust him a lot. After tapping M's shunt and reviewing the MRI, it was decided she would be admitted to the hospital for monitoring and possible surgery Thursday morning. I had a really difficult time believing that my baby was going to have her FIFTH brain surgery in four months!! An xray shunt series and abdominal ultrasound revealed no obvious problems with any part of the shunt system. This was good news, however, we still didn't have an answer for her swelling and irritability. It was a looooooong night as M did nothing but cry frantically. The resident saw us again in the morning and it was decided that surgery would not be happening for now. They were hesitant to cut into her yet again without absolute proof of a shunt problem, especially since her sutures haven't even dissolved from the last surgery. The current theory is that she has a leak around the shunt catheter and that it is ever so slightly possible it will seal itself off. So, we are home, watching and waiting....hoping and praying.