Surgery

All is well in the PICU :)

Mac's surgery went a little differently than expected. The neurosurgeon ended up sending off copies of his scans to a bunch of colleagues across the country, and they all conferred to decide what to do with our guy's melon. So, Dr. Gruber ended up going in and opening up 10 cysts altogether, which took 5 full (and LONG) hours. He removed each of his shunts, so Mac's CSF is currently being drained into containers next to his bed (External Ventricular Drains: EVD). Its a good thing that this all happened, apparently neither of his shunts were functioning very well, and it was just a matter of time before there was a full on failure.

Today Dr. Gruber will look at Mac's CT that was just done and will start monkeying with the rate at which each side of his brain drains. He'll do this until he feels like things have settled out as much as they are going to, and then Mac will go back into surgery to have 1-2 shunts placed. We will more than likely be here for about a week--hopefully a little less?!

Mac's night went smoothly. His nurse was a little more generous with the pain meds than we've experienced in the past, so it was a little quieter than usual :) He's on oxygen because (as usual for him) he has some pretty significant apnea spells after surgery, so its just a little bit of positive pressure to help him remember to breathe. Our room is pretty noisy as this time there's just a curtain dividing Mac and his neighbor, but they did say that they'd bring a full-size bed in for Mac tonight, so I could lay next to him and sleep with him :) That sounds like a real treat, since I can't hold him right now until things settle out with his EVDs. Other than that, he's been eating like a champ!

Thanks for checking in on him, and hope that you're all doing well!