April 2013

At the beginning of the month, I ran/walked the Savannah Komen race for the cure 5k.  It felt good and I was glad I did, though I dropped my phone, shattering the screen, and there was no race clock so I don't know what my time was.  The two other ladies in this picture are from Stroller Strong Moms, they're two of the strongest athletes in the classes so they probably could have run a 10k in the time it took me to run my 5k but whatever :)

80 turned 3 months adjusted! I celebrated by making this board, and taking this picture!

 My mom and I had planned a trip to visit my Granny again in Alabama on the 17th.  I was supposed to pick my mom up at the airport in Jacksonville FL, then we'd drive on to AL.  I was feeding 80 in the car in the airport cell lot when I looked down and noticed that his hair was wet.  I looked and the same place he had the white spot back in February was open and leaking.  I called the neurosurgeon, picked my mom up from the airport, and we drove right back to Savannah.  We took him to the neurosurgeons office, then were admitted to Memorial PICU.  He had the shunt removed, a PICC line placed in his chest, and started a round of antibiotics the next day.

 Because he has hydrocephalus, they couldn't just take the shunt out, they had to put a temporary drain in place.  You can see it here as the yellow tube stitched to his scalp.

 It reaches down into the ventricle and when the pressure builds it empties via gravity and pressure into a measurement beaker.  They measure how much is emptied over an hour, or several hours, keep track of it.  If he doesn't put out very much, they will reconsider replacing the shunt.

80 backslid on his development.  He stopped cooing, and developed a torticollis. He has always appeared to have crossed eyes, but in the hospital he developed a very evident Strabismus.

It was determined that he should not see an ophthalmologist until his torticollis had been resolved.  He saw a in hospital physical therapist instead.  She gave us a laundry list of stretches for his arms, neck, and back, with a few leg and trunk stretches thrown in for good measure.

  

I mentioned before that 80 backslid a bit developmentally, well that is not entirely true.  He did learn a new trick, he found his hands for the first time!  It was nice to see him doing something new during his time at the hospital.  He was all smiles and lovey the whole time he was there, but it is depressing for me!

The most important development during 80s 3 week hospital stay was that his temporary tubing slid up and out of the ventricle it was supposed to be draining, and into the plural space.  It started draining the wrong fluids, and caused a minor hemorrhage.  The short story is that Dr Thompson decided he wasn't comfortable replacing the shunt.  The temporary tubing was removed, his head plugged, and everything stitched up.  A week or so days later he was out of the hospital, getting CT and MRI scans to monitor the progression of his hydrocephalus.. of which there has been none!  Again, I'm writing this in June and he still has no shunt. It's amazing!  He was discharged on the 4th of May.

Back to me:  My mother was in town for all of this, so I took the opportunity to have her go to the hospital in the mornings while I went to SSM to work out.  One of the days, while running the trail, I turned my ankle.  I thought I had broken it initially, I could put no weight on it and my toes were numb, but it seemed to feel better very quickly and I was able to put weight on it and finish the workout.  I have turned my ankle like this before and it had never been an issue so I, thinking I was still 20 years old, thought that I was fine.  I had forgotten that I was almost 30 and can't just walk alway anymore.  The next day, when I took my shoes off after coming home from the hospital, I was greeted with my very own cankle!

Even now in June it's still very sensitive, but I have finally been able to work out without a brace so it is getting better.

The final chapter of the whirlwind of April was that we had all the carpet pulled out of the living/parlor/hallway/closets, and the linoleum pulled out from the entryway/dining/kitchen.  Replaced it all with wood-look tiles. This was supposed to be a huge thing that I was so excited about, and now it's barely an afterthought!  Sheesh.

before (well before, you can see we still had Sumo and the parlor was still unpainted)

Needless to say I love it, it's so much cleaner.