Woosh....

That was the sound of another surgery appointment flying by without actually having surgery.

Sharron and I came back from lunch to a completely new plan. The Neurology and Neonatology teams had re-grouped and re-examined the last head ultrasound with the help of a Pediatric Radiologist this time. They came to an entirely new conclusion. Not only does Tyler not have a new bleed in his head (it was most likely a funny looking clot formation), but his ventricles are actually getting smaller! This makes alot of sense considering the recent reduction in head-size.

We were expecting to come back to a pretty difficulty snap decision. Surgery or no, if yes we need to take him down to the OR now. That decision was going to be more complex because we had a room full of experts each with their own opinion. We respect the lot of them but someone has to make the call. Thankfully the Neurosurgeon and Attending Neonatologist ended up on the same page.

This was a really agonizing one for us. First and foremost It's doesn't feel natural to "want" your kid to go into surgery even when you know it is indicated and should help. Add to that conflicting information (bad ultrasound read,un-expected change) and you have no idea what you want to happen, let alone think should happen. Thankfully in the end it was not a hard call to make. Faced with so many unknowns and our experts admittedly working from opinion. A shunt is a permanent thing, once it's in it stays until it fails and needs to be replaced. It is possible to out-grow the need for a shunt, but the current research indicates that it just causes more damage to go in and remove it.

The current plan is to watch closely and monitor until Monday and do another MRI. As long as he stays symptom free and his ventricles continue to get smaller or stay stable, we can wait and see.