No surgery at this point

Neurosurgery came by and explained their reasoning for not wanting to do surgery.

In a way I can see their point.

He said that the fluid did not show up on the CT (which it didn't).  An ultrasound is not a really clear picture (which it's not).  So he is not convinced that this is the problem.

He says you can trace the baclofen pump tubing the entire way (on CT) and it is not broken.

It is a fairly big surgery to replace a baclofen pump (which it is).  So he would hate to remove a working baclofen pump and then have to do a fairly large surgery to replace it.

I asked if we could just sample the fluid around the tubing to see if it is truly infected.  He said you could, but then you risk introducing infection.  And since she has been on antibiotics it might not grow anything anyway.

He said her CRP is improving (which it is).  But I pointed out that it should be cut in half each day and she has been on IV antibiotics for almost 1 week now.

I asked so if she is on antibiotics for a week and a half to 2 weeks and has sill not improved, would you be willing to go in at that point?  He said maybe, but he still wants some compelling evidence to prove that it is infected.

I asked him about pulling out the vagel nerve stimulator so we could a least get an MRI to get a better picture of what is going on.  He said you could, but he wouldn't suggest it because you are just putting her through an unnecessary surgery.

He is being very conservative which surprises me coming from a cocky neurosurgeon that act like they can fix the world.

There is another test that he wants to do (her hospitalists had mentioned this test also).  You pull out some of Ellie's own blood and pull out the white blood cells.  You infuse the white blood cells with radiation and then inject them back into her.  Then you do x-rays and see where the white blood cells go (since white blood cells job is to repair damaged cells).  Where they go indicates where the infection is.  It sounds like a good test to do.