Change in plans? Maybe....

When you have a baby in the NICU, the one thing that's certain is uncertainty...

Tracey and I got the results of Colby's MRI yesterday. For the most part, things look good. There's no signs of PVL or any other "dead spots" in his brain. The mass of his brain seems to be developing normally. So we were very relieved to hear this. But we could tell the doctor had something more to tell us.

The MRI shows to a much greater degree the extent of Colby's hydrocephalus. We could clearly see that his ventricles are extremely enlarged thus pushing his brain against his skull. Here is a link where you can learn more about what hydrocephalus is and some possible treatments.
http://www.pedneurosurgery.net/hydrocephalus.php3

The doctor did say that in Colby's case, we may have a couple options but that we needed to speak with the neurosurgeon for the details. One would be to put a shunt into his brain which then has a tube which runs just under his skin, down the side of his head and follows down into his abdomen where it would drain. Another option might be to go in and somehow widen the tube which would normally allow the fluid to drain. We could see on the MRI that this tube is very narrow in his case. We're not sure what this would entail. The doctor said that when we talked with the neurosurgeon, he would give his opinion on what would be best and explain them in more detail.

We arrived at the hospital at 10:30 am. Tracey had to go to work for 2pm so I stayed and waited for the neurosurgeon to come. At about 6pm, the neurosurgeon called and said he was stuck in a surgery and couldn't come. He said maybe he'd be able to come talk to us today (Friday) or Saturday.

So...that's where we are...in limbo. We're not sure if this will jeopardise Colby coming home for Christmas. We're not sure when they'll do his surgery or what surgery he may get.

As you can imagine, this took the wind out of our sails. It's been a long couple months and at this point, Tracey and I have very little emotional reserves. We need things to fall into place a little. A shunt is a relatively common procedure now a days to treat hydrocephalus. However, we thought we were beyond that possibility. For the past couple months we'd ask the doctors if Colby needed a shunt and they said probably not....now just days before he's scheduled to come home, the story changes. The reason is that the MRI showed in greater detail Colby's situation, but we're frustrated that if this was the case, why did they wait so long to do the MRI.

Water under the bridge..... We now need to focus on today, then tomorrow. We still need to go through the motions of getting ready for Colby to come home on Tuesday. It's hard though because we're not sure he will. So today I need to go get his car seat inspected at the police station and maybe get some of the last things we need.

Tracey and I are totally out of touch with the holidays this year as you might imagine. If Colby were to come home on Christmas, we would stay home Christmas eve, probably go to the hospital and start preparing, then on Christmas day we would go get him and stay home. If he doesn't come home, I'm not sure how festive we'll feel.

Sorry for the rather negative posting today. But we're tired and frustrated.

I guess in the big picture if this is what Colby needs to help him along, then it's best that he has it done and that's what we need to focus on.