Monday, July 18, 2011

An Eventful Day

We met with Emma's Neurosurgeon today at Primary Children's. She hasn't thrown up for a few days... but she is in pain. She has serious crying (screaming) fits through out the day for anywhere from 20 min to 2 and a half hours. At night she either sleeps for eight hours straight from exhaustion or fusses every hour. It's so hard to know what the problem is with any baby who cries so we have been trying everything under the sun from different formulas to gas medication with no success but were still confused since she hasn't been showing some of the "classic" signs of hydrocephalus (being unable to look up, rapid increase of head circumference, etc.). The neurosurgeon ordered another CT scan to compare with the one we had done in April and I took a picture of the computer screen comparing the two (see below).

Her second CT scan at almost 4 months old.


Looking at a cross section of Emma's brain from above, the dark shapes in the center are the ventricals that have spinal fluid built up in them. The image on the right was on April 23rd and on the left July 18th (today).
She is scheduled for surgery to get a shunt at 8:15 tomorrow morning. I'm nervous about her having to go through the surgery, but can't handle another minute of seeing her in pain and not being able to comfort her. I just hope it helps.

8 comments:

HalfBatty said...

We will be praying for her. What a sweet little girl.
-Valerie

Michelle said...

I hope everything goes well. We will be thinking about you guys. I hope this solves all the problems Emma has been enduring lately.

Anonymous said...

You'll all be in our prayers, but please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help. We love you!!

Melissa Smith said...

Oh, Julie I'm sorry! Emma has had a lot of triumph's in her little life and this WILL be another one for her. You're in our prayer's.

Suzette Willmore said...

emma is a little fighter and has quite the cheer squad behind her! good luck.....

Chelsea said...

Hoping all went well. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

McKenzie Johnson said...

Oh my goodness all that poor little girl & you guys have been through! We are praying for a you all!

Veda said...

Hi Julie! I found your blog a few weeks ago. Congratulations on your adorable little girl! I shared your news and pictures with the ladies. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and hope everything went well with this surgery. Lots of love, the gals at Trend (we miss you!)