Brain stuff

Just a quick update because I'm short on time this morning.

Robbie's head ultrasound was normal. YAY YAY YAY!

He had a pretty decent day yesterday overall. I'm not sure HE would agree, but I do. He managed to pull his NG tube out and had to have it put back. He didn't appreciate that very much AT ALL. Had a huge temper tantrum about it.

Then his vent tube wasn't in the right place so it had to be untaped and pushed further in. He wasn't so sure about that either, though the temper tantrum was way less than the NG tube temper tantrum. His nurse had her finger in his mouth when working on the vent tube and she said he was nursing it. So sad. One of these days he'll get to really nurse, though.

Anyway, the vent tube thing was discovered while we were Kangarooing and he kept dropping his sats really badly so finally they put him back to bed to fix it. So I only got to hold him for just over an hour. I almost cried when they put him back. An hour just isn't enough.

His trach aspirate was still negative yesterday, so that's 2/3 of the way to a true negative. I'm crossing my fingers for today.


I managed to get my hands on the radiologist's report from my CT scan. It sounds better than I had hoped, really.

Findings:
Ventricular system of the brain is midline without a shift, dilatation or mass effect. No intracranial hemoorhage is seen. There is localized prominance of the extra-axial CSF spaces at the level of the coronal suture. This is more prominent on the right than left. It may be developmental. Calvarium is intact. No abnormal enhancement is seen after contrast administration.

Impression:
Slight prominence of extra-axial CSF spaces as described above.
MR scan might be recommended to further evaluate these areas to exclude either an arachnoid cyst or a low-grade tumor such as a gangliocytoma.

I did a little google research last night and checked out the cyst & tumor possibilities and it sounds like both have good prognosis. Obviously, we'll hope it's developmental and is actually NOTHING, but even if it's something, it's not necessarily the end of the world. So that's something.

I'll be glad to get the MRI done and talk to the neurologist. Of course, we still have to figure out why I have the numb spot, too. And a really bad part of all of this is that when my head hurts, I'm SUPER paranoid. I've always been prone to headaches and such. And of course now.. I'm not eating or sleeping well. I cry about 20 times a day and I'm under a teensy amount of stress, so headaches are pretty par for course. But now I have to think "is it a headache? Or is it a headache?"

We're off to the urologist for David this morning. I don't expect any answers this morning, but hopefully he'll have some ideas and soon we'll know something.

Going to be a hectic day. Urology appointment in an hour, then off to see Robbie. Then my MRI is at 5:45p.
And at some point we have to get the house cleaned up and such becuase David had the bright idea to invite my MIL & BIL over for BBQ tomorrow. I don't know WHAT he was thinking. I was not consulted at all.
Me, personally, I'd tell them that they could come over but they were going to have to deal with a messy house. But David would freak out if his mom saw the house dirty. So he'll be going crazy tonight trying to get everything done.

And you know, I will be spending time with Robbie, and he gets priority. So we'll see how this day goes.

--Trish