Going Home

The Neurosurgeon definitely knows everything is not functioning properly with Cayman's shunt. It's been on the lowest setting (0.5) for 2 days now. While we have seen a slight change in her head size (it's now 46 cm) it has not drained drastically like it should on this setting. Since the shunt is not completely plugged the doctor wants to wait on surgically fixing it. He feels safe on waiting because the pressure on her brain has decreased and she's back to her normal self. It's possible that this problem could clear up on its own without surgery and the doctor feels it's worth waiting to see which direction it's going to go. We like that Dr. Maher is not so quick to put Cayman under the knife as that seems to be a typical characteristic of a surgeon. If he can spare Cayman of another surgery he will. He's confident that there is no serious threat to her brain health by waiting since her head pressure has decreased. So we're going home and hopefully not to return until our regular scheduled visit with the doctor next week. We will be phoning in to let the doctor know what we are seeing with Cayman's head whether it's: better, same, or worse. So we'll be doing lots of head circumference measuring over the next few days. If we see the number increasing we'll come back to the hospital right away and it will be Shunt Revision #2 for her.

It was fun to stay at the Ronald McDonald house and have Cayman with us. It was kind of like a little vacation getaway...even though it's not exactly the same as a vacation. Actually it's not like a vacation at all!! It's been a very stressful 2 days constantly wondering, worrying, and waiting. Never mind that idea!!!

Story Time:
At the Ronald McDonald house there are several refrigerators in the kitchen. Every 5 rooms share a fridge. We mark our room number on our food. Mike bought a gallon of milk and cereal for breakfast while we stayed there. After the first day we noticed the milk carton was lower than when we left it. Someone was stealing our milk. So Mike took out the pen and marked "Breast milk" all over the carton. That was enough to scare off our milk thief.