Ugh!

Well, Mac's scan didn't go as well as we would have hoped. The shunt on the swollen side actually looks perfect. However, on the left hand side, four cysts (that have more than likely always been there) have gradually filled up with fluid, which in turn puts pressure on the rest of his brain. Right now on his scans, the left hand side is almost completely taken up by these cysts and all the brain material is squished up against the skull. On Tuesday morning the neurosurgeon will open up his left hand side, remove the shunt and use a special instrument to go in and poke holes in these cysts in hopes that this will allow them to communicate with the shunted ventricle, and thus the shunt will drain the fluid that is accumulating. There is a chance that he will bleed more than is acceptable, and if that happens, the surgeon will have to place an external drain until the blood clears out of the area (blood products clog shunts, so you can't put one in place where there has very recently been active bleeding). We will then stay in the hospital until the blood clears and a new shunt is placed. Hopefully, though, everything will go perfectly and we'll be home after a couple of nights! This surgery takes a lot longer and is much more "technically difficult" (not words you want to hear about something going on in a baby's brain) than his others have been, so we're preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

In other news, his normal check-up with our (amazing) pediatrician went okay! He weighed in at 10 lbs, 4 oz, which means that I can quit fortifying his breast milk. I got the all clear to breastfeed exclusively, but with surgery coming up, I will keep giving him breastmilk in bottles so that he's as strong as he can be going into it. We can work on breastfeeding after he's recovered. He didn't get any shots, as certain ones are risky in kids with unstable hydrocephalus, so we're waiting until things calm down a bit in the melon department. Naturally, there's currently an outbreak of whooping cough just south of us....so hopefully that will stay AWAY.

I will try and update sometime Tuesday after he's done and we know more what the rest of his week will look like! Thanks for checking in on him :)