Surgery

Marissa went to surgery around 0930 this morning.  She had her twenty-something-ish shunt revision.  Her neurosurgeon reports that all three of her shunt catheters were occluded by brain tissue.  At some point in the last two months her shunts were functioning too well and she overdrained causing the ventricles to close down on the ends of the catheters.  As a result, "sticky" tissue clogged up the openings.  This, unfortunately, is what kept happening previously when she had a VP shunt.  Her VA shunt/s worked so much better.  He also continued to be slightly concerned about the appearance of her abdominal xray from yesterday.  Dissatisfied by the answer he got from the pediatrics team, he consulted with general surgery late last night who agreed it should be looked into.  He has ordered an abdominal ultrasound for later today.  If there is no pseudocyst related to her distal shunt catheter, then general surgery will take over and follow her as an outpatient.  We will likely give her some time to heal before exploring things further.  In all likelihood, today's surgery is a temporary fix and Marissa will need further intervention to keep her shunts functioning properly whether that means moving the distal catheter back to her heart or adding a second valve in the distal portion of the VP shunt tubing.  Time will tell.

I'm still waiting for her to be ready for me in the PACU and will update more as I know it.  Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers.  We certainly appreciate it.