Surgery is Scheduled!

I called the neurosurgeon today and scheduled Emily's surgery. It will be on Friday, February 12. I don't have the time yet and will have to wait until closer to the date for the pre-op department to call me on that. The procedure she is having done this time is called Intracranial Pressure Monitoring. Here is a good link to explain the procedure.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003411.htm


While it is still a brain surgical procedure, it is less invasive than doing a shunt revision. She should be in the hospital for a couple of days while the monitoring is being done. We are trying to determine if a full revision on her shunt is necessary or not. We are trying to avoid that if we can, but part of me feels like that is inevitable. Our ultimate goal is to hopefully find out that all she needs is just a pressure flow adjustment to her shunt valve to relieve her of all of her headaches and to stop her constant suffering.

We will have an appointment with the neurosurgeon next Tuesday to go in and talk to her about the test and to get our general pre-op check up before surgery. I guess I better get my list of questions ready, too.

And there is also something that I can't help but point out here, especially to those of you that have been with us through thick and thin from the very beginning of our children's lives. With the exception of the two brain surgeries that Emily had this past summer...Emily always seems to have brain surgeries in the month of February!!!!!! Her shunt was first placed when she was 4 months old (Feb 2003). Her first shunt revision was when she was 2 years old (Feb 2005). Emily had a brain decompression surgery at age 5 (Feb 2008). And at the same time, Emily had another shunt revision at age 5 (Feb 2008). Then she had her two surgeries this past summer in June 2009. And here we are again....another brain procedure/surgery (Feb 2010). I think I'm beginning to want to remove the month of February from all calendars!!!!