Back asleep.

She was awake for maybe 3 hours.  Now she's back asleep.  While asleep she has dropped her sats a few times.

The Dr.'s just rounded on her.  They thought she is doing well.  They think her discharge is vaginal and probably just due to the estrogen.  They think she is just getting over a cold.

Now the bad news...they want to keep us here at least 1 more day.  When they told me her brain scans (hydrocephalus) looked the same...apparently that was just the Dr.'s looking at them, not the radiologist.  When the radiologist looked at them, they thought the shunt track is intact, but her ventricles (in her brain) look slightly enlarged.

So now they are going to send in neurosurgery to consult.

At first I was like...oh no...not surgery.

But then I realized that her shunt is programmable.  So hopefully, if they think she needs to drain more, then they can just reprogram her shunt by the radio frequencies.

I don't know if they will or not.  I think she just has sleepy days.  I don't necessarily think it's the shunt...but who knows?

Maybe you just have to up the rate it is draining as they get bigger...I'm not sure.

For those of you unfamiliar with these terms:

We all have ventricles in our brain (fluid filled areas).  This is called hydrocephalus.  If we didn't have them we would get knocked out every time we bump our head.  They act as a cushion.  Our body produces this fluid (spinal fluid) and then reabsorbs the fluid.  Ellie's ventricles are quite enlarged.  Enlarged ventricles are not the problem, it is when they show pressure.  So it is like an empty balloon versus a water balloon.  The empty balloon is no problem, the water balloon is a problem because it has pressure pushing on the brain.  Your ventricles and fluid are like a faucet dripping water into the sink and drain.  If the flow of water in can match the flow of water out you are fine.  If it can't drain faster than the water is coming, that is when you get problems.  The problem could lie with the brain producing too much fluid or that it can't drain it fast enough.  Either way it is a problem and you have to get the fluid to drain.  So they place a 1-way valve in her head.  They open up the skin, drill through the skull and brain matter and place the 1-way valve into the ventricle.  The 1-way valve is called a shunt.  It only allows fluid to travel out of the brain, but not back.  It allows fluid out when there is pressure, or if it is a programmable shunt, then it drains at a set rate.  The shunt is connected to tubing which runs under her skin into the cavity around the heart or the abdomen.  Ellie's goes to her abdomen.  Not into her stomach, just the area around her stomach.  The body reabsorbs the fluid.  This is called a VP shunt.  The tubing is the shunt track.  You cannot see the tubing externally. You can slightly feel the shunt on her right side of her head.  Shunts can be very tricky.  If you can get them to last for a year or longer then you are usually in the clear, you won't have to replace them for a long time.  But there are many, many shunts that have to be replaced every month to several times a year.  We have been very blessed in that Ellie's have worked well.  She had her first shunt placed when she was 10 months old (in 2003).  Then she had 1 revision in Fall of 2007.  We thought her sleepiness might be due to her shunt.  When they went in and replaced the shunt, there was not a lot of pressure, so it probably did not need to be replaced, however...some of the tubing was cracked, so the neurosurgeon said it was good we replaced it since it would have broken.  Plus her first shunt was not programmable, but with the second one we chose to use a programmable one that you can program with radio frequency externally, telling the shunt how much to drain.