Surgery

Just a quick post to let my Blogger friends know that Marissa is in surgery.  She has an obstruction of her third and fourth ventricles.  All three of her shunts appear to be functioning well, but the aquaduct is occluded.  This is particularly dangerous because obstruction of the fourth ventricle could lead to a build up of fluid that would place pressure on her brain stem.  For those who are not well-versed on neuro anatomy,  your brain stem controls all of your basic life functions (breathing, heart beating, etc.).  She was scheduled for a STEALTH CT at noon and like a good girl she fell asleep promptly at 11:45.  STEALTH requires precise scanning with absolutely no movement whatsoever so she was to be sedated.  Her surgeon will use this "map" during the surgery.  We decided to give it a shot without sedation.  We wheeled her all the way down to radiology, placed her in the scanner and did the scan with nothing.  She never made a peep or even twitched!  Unfortunately, surgery was delayed until about 4:00, so she's still in the OR.  He's expecting it to take a couple of hours.  We're not sure exactly what he'll do, what her outcome will be or how long we'll be here.  I'll update as soon as I can.  Thank you for keeping our sweet baby in your thoughts.