Sydney's little boo-boo

When Sydney was about 7 days old (May 17th), the docs in UT did a routine ultrasound of her head.  They found a small amount of blood in her ventricles inside her brain.  The ventricle is the spot where you make spinal fluid.  There are 2 ventricles in a "c" shape in your brain - 1 for each side.  The fluid flows from there and collects in the 3rd ventricle at the base of the brain.  From the 3rd ventricle it flows down the spinal cord, when it reaches the bottom on the spine, it wraps around it and flows back up and encases the brain - then it is reabsorbed by the body (important salts & proteins come from this fluid)

In Sydney's case, the blood has blocked some of the normal flow of the fluid.  It is getting backed up in her ventricles causing them (mainly the left one) to enlarge, which in turn causes her head to enlarge - making the fontanlle (soft spot) a little hard and sutures (the lines between the different plates in the head) split a little.  They measured her head daily to look for these signs.  On May 24th, the docs in UT did a spinal tap or lumbar puncture (LP) and drained some fluid.  Everything looked good after that.  They continued to measure her head to see if that had fixed the problem.  They did another ultrasound on Tuesday, June 1st to see if the ventricle size had indeed gone down.  It hadn't.  They would need to preform another LP.  They were only able to drain a small amount of fluid this time.  The docs didn't like that result.  I had just said goodbye to Jeff the day before as he left me for the 3rd time in Utah.  I couldn't take going through this without him again.  I called the insurance advocate crying.  I told her that they were doing another LP on my little girl and we needed to be with my husband/her dad in Dallas during all of this.  I asked/begged her to find a way to get us home.  The Lord answered my prayers/pleadings - Laurie called that night saying we were going home.

I raised a few questions during rounds on Wednesday - Could the reason you couldn't drain a lot of fluid be the result of a bad tap? and a few more questions I can't remember.  Apparently they took it to heart and performed another tap on her that afternoon with similar results - not a lot of fluid draining.

Thursday we flew to Dallas - tucked her in and said goodnight.  I told the nurse I would be in around noon to take care of her and hold her.  Jeff & I got a call around 10am.  The neonatal neurologist called and wanted to discuss putting in a reservoir in her head.  This would take the place of the LPs and once in place, it has less risks than doing repeated LPs.  It will also help drain the fluid better than the LPs - especially since the last 2 gave us such horrible fluid results.  We agreed.

Her little head before:

Her little head after:

She seems to be doing ok with it.  They do a little tap everyday.  Her head circumference has gone down a little bit in the past week, which we take as a good sign.

What is next?  What does it mean?  When will you know?  - All good questions that we have no clue the answers to.  We will let you know when all of us - docs, Jeff & myself - know.

Right now she looks like a little cartoon character who got hit on the head and has a bump.  All we need is little circling birds and the picture will be complete!