Jaxon had his brain shunt surgery a week ago Tuesday. Lets just say for starters this was a way better recovery than in January. On Monday we went for pre-admissions testing. Jaxon had been stuffy and coughing a little so we weren't real sure they would actually do his surgery. After they listened to him several times we decided this may be the best it was gonna get since he's in preschool (aka germ zone) this year. We got our arrival time of 9:30, so were happy we didn't have to get up so early. Well while we were getting blood drawn they called and asked us to come in at 6:00 instead due to a cancellation. So much for sleeping in.
We got home and Jaxon had a terrible night coughing. He woke up at 1:30 am and decided he wanted to jump on the bed and watch movies. Jason and I let him watch movies while we went back to bed. He stayed up until we left at 4:30. He did sleep a little in the car on the way to Kansas City.
Surgery was about 2 hours and went very smooth. When we met with the surgeon after surgery he said he put in a bigger shunt than he originally planned. He told us he was really glad we did the procedure because there was a lot more pressure on little man's brain than we originally thought from just looking at MRI's. This sure made us feel good, we made the right decision. He was talking as soon as he woke up. He did have to stay flat on his back for 24 hours to make sure the shunt didn't drain to fast. If it drains to fast the brain could pull away from the skull and cause bleeding. I figured we would have a hard time keeping him down but I think he was to sore to get up. They told us they can a metal rod from his abdomen up his chest, neck and side of his head and this was how they fed the shunt through. We were discharged by Wednesday night. So far he has been doing good.
One of the nurses in the operating room was very artistic. She drew on his bandages below. The 1st is the caboose of a train going into a tunnel on his stomach. The 2nd is the steam engine coming out his head where the shunt is actually placed. It was really neat.
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| The Caboose |
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| The Steam Engine coming out his head. |
The more boring information. This was a brain shunt placed in his ventricle to allow the fluid to drain from the brain into his abdominal cavity. It was non programmable if you are doing any type of research. This means if we ever want to change the amount of flow he will have to have another surgery. There is a shunt that is programmable, however it is programmed by a very strong magnet. This makes doing an MRI very difficult. We would always have to go to Children's Mercy to have an MRI done. In an emergency we would like to have the option to go to Stormont Vail get the MRI have it sent to the neuro- surgeon in KC and make the determination if there is a problem or he just simply has the flu. Save us an emergency room trip to KC just to find out he simply has a stomach bug or the flu. Vomiting is the most obvious sign of shunt failure. We will have a follow up appointment in a couple weeks with a rapid MRI (he doesn't have to be put to sleep) and see how well it's working. From here on out we should only see progress.
