surgery for baby claire

Last Thursday we spent most of the day in the ER with Claire, because her already more-than-average spit up had become projectile vomiting in the last couple of weeks, and had escalated to every other feed or so in the last few days. Dr. Dad thought she might have pyloric stenosis, and additionally, since increased vomiting is a warning sign that her hydrocephalus (extra fluid in her head because of the way her spinal defect pulled down her spinal cord and blocked the exits for the cerebral-spinal fluid) is getting more severe, so we wanted her to get worked up.

She got an ultrasound of her pyloris, which ruled out pyloric stenosis, so she got an ultrasound of her head, which revealed more fluid in the ventricles of her head than the last time we looked. She also got a head CT to get an even clearer picture. Her neurosurgeon, whom we love, insisted on coming down from clinic to see “her girl” personally, and we discussed whether or not it’s time to move forward with surgery to place a shunt that would drain the excess fluid from her head into her belly where her body could then absorb and deal with it.

The bottom line is, it looks like it’s time to get the shunt surgery. We had been hoping to avoid it, but we think that since the fluid continues to increase, we’d rather go ahead and do something about it instead of waiting for things to get worse, which would involve symptoms like trouble breathing and swallowing.

We hate that our wee girl has to have surgery again, but we know she’s a trooper and will come through great. We see the neurosurgeon again on Monday morning, and it looks like the surgery will be Tuesday or Wednesday. Not sure how many days inpatient would be involved, yet. Please keep our Claire Bear in your thoughts and prayers, and us too.