Shuntogram

Not long after Dr. Lindley left our room, a nice nurse named Kathy came to take us to nuclear medicine for Hayden's shuntogram. Once we got down there, Hayden was ooed and ahhed over by the two young and pretty ladies that were going to do his test. I'm beginning to wonder if he likes to go to the hospital so much because everyone tells him how cute and adorable he is. We do the same thing at home, but I guess it isn't the same coming from family. We have never been through a shuntogram before, so we weren't sure what to expect. One of the neurosurgeons came in and explained what he was going to do, basically another shunt tap to measure pressure and then to inject radioactive dye. Hearing that more needles were involved, Tony excused himself from the room. Yep, I got to hold down my screaming boy again. First, his intracranial pressure was measured. It was too high, but I'm not sure how much since his crying made it higher. Once the dye was injected, we moved over to the x-ray machine. I had to hold his head facing right (so his shunt was facing up) for 10 minutes. Hayden normally faces to the right anyway, we are hoping it's a vision related reason, but today he was a little resistant to the idea. I think he just didn't appreciate having my hand on his face and keeping his head still. Still, he did a great job of cooperating and they got great pictures. Then, they had to put him on an incline so that the dye could travel down to his belly. That was an easy and painless 10 more minutes. One static picture of his belly was needed to see if the dye was dispersing as it should, but it had to be taken no less than 45 minutes after we began. Hayden and I cuddled while daddy came back in to hang out with us. After the static picture was taken, Kathy took us back to our room to await the results.

Dr. Kung , who began the shuntogram today, came back in to tell us that the distal end (stomach end) of the shunt was obstructed by something and was no longer draining Hayden's spinal fluid. He was going to need a shunt revision (replaced) immediately. He would be in the OR within 4 hours. AHHH! Not again. Why can't this precious child just get a break? At this point I guess we are just very thankful that it isn't infected.

Before I knew it, Dr. Kim, the anestheologist, came in and took Hayden's medical information. She indicated that surgery would be soon. Please God, take good care of my baby just like you have on his 11 previous trips to the operating room. I think watching him go into surgery is getting harder instead of easier.