More details and another (non-brain) surgery

I wanted to give a few more details on yesterday's happenings.  Jenny and I both felt good about attempting the ETV option going into surgery.  We also met with a nurse before the surgery who had been in the room for many of them and said if it was her child she would definitely go that route if possible.  The surgeon also took time to meet with us beforehand and answered our questions and reiterated that if things did not look good once he went in that he would retreat and do a shunt.  It was nice to meet him as only Jenny had met him before and we were comfortable with his approach.

As he went in for the surgery, he did start the ETV process but had to pull back for a couple of reasons. Now this is all based on my understanding of what occurred, so please pardon any errors in my recall!  For one, he came across membranes/scarring at the top of the pathway where he wanted to go.  He also communicated to Jenny that he wanted a certain area, close to an artery he could not hit, to be 7 or 8 mm wide and it was only 2 mm wide. Also, his instrument is 3 mm wide so it was a no go.

Fortunately he was able to attempt the ETV through the original shunt hole and used that same hole to put in the new shunt.  The neat thing about the new shunt is that it is programmable so they can adjust the pressure to regulate fluid flow.  For now they have set the level pretty high meaning the pressure has to be pretty high to have the fluid drain.  This was done because she lost a lot of fluid during the surgery yesterday and so she was a bit sunken.  So they should adjust it lower at some point to allow for faster flow.

And that was yesterday.  Today was eventful as well.  For one, they did an MRI to see how things were going and came across what they thought could be potential blood in the brain.  This would have been a worst-case scenario but fortunately they were able to determine with an emergency CT scan that it was not blood.  The same MRI that had shown the potential blood also showed progress in the brain and the surgeon said it looked a lot better (in Jenny's description "Amazing").  So, there was a MRI, the CT scan, and an X-Ray; they did the X-ray on her body to be sure the shunt was placed successfully and the catheter in her stomach was positioned well.  Unfortunately the catheter was not in the right place so they had to do another surgery, but only on the abdomen to fix that part of the setup and it went well (other than the fact that it took about 45 minutest to get her IV placed).

I should also clarify a previous misunderstanding I've discussed.  Before, when she had a leak in the shunt, it was creating a pool of fluid in the "subdural" space.  I had described this as being below the skull but outside the brain.  In fact it was still inside the brain, under the "leathery" (that's how the neurosurgeon describes it) outer covering of the brain.

Most importantly, Brooklyn is now resting fairly peacefully and we are so grateful for her courage and calmness.

Here's a quick picture (isn't she so cute!!!)- thanks for all the support!