Oh, What a Week!

The Julian clan has had better weeks, I have to say! I had a wreck on Monday on my way to work. Luckily Max was not with me. I was sitting at a stop sign and a young teenage boy came around a curve too fast and slammed into the front of my car. I had just gotten my car fixed from someone else who hit me in the exact same spot a few months ago. No one was hurt, but it is such a hassle!

The worst has been for sweet Max. When you have a shunt, throwing up can be a really big deal. It can mean shunt malfunction or infection which would be bad because pressure would likely build back up in his brain. Tuesday he threw up several times and was very lethargic, so I called our neuro.dr. and they suggested taking him to the ER at Children's Hospital. We got there about 1:00pm. About 15 different doctors, 15 different nurses, 2 CT scans, 1 x-ray of his shunt line, an I.V., 2 spinal taps (the first drew no fluid, so they had to do it again), and an overnight stay in the hospital later, our hopes are that it is just a virus. We were released and told to watch him and bring him back if his symptoms continue and they will investigate the shunt further.

The CT scans showed that a tube has come out of a ventricle in his brain and they believe has probably not been functioning properly for a long time. The good thing about that is that to this point, his body seems to be doing the work necessary to drain the fluid itself. Yea! The bad thing is, we will still have to go through this process in the future when he gets sick because there is still the possibility of shunt malfunction or infection. The scans also showed a small speck of blood in his brain that is unrelated to his original brain bleeds. He is stable as far as this is concerned, but we are supposed to follow up on it with his neurosurgeon. I called the neuro yesterday and found out that they will likely be releasing us as a patient and getting us established as a patient at Children's. I was extremely unhappy about this and broke down and cried while I was on the phone with them. Dr. Burson (our dr.) has been great, has lots of experience, I completely trust him, and through this whole experience this week I just kept thinking, "I can't wait to talk to Dr. Burson about this and see what he says." Children's is a teaching hospital, so there are lots of residents (which is also why we saw SO MANY docs) and the resident we dealt with didn't act like he had a clue about anything, wasn't friendly or personal, and doesn't know Max's complete history. So...I'm rather disappointed.

Max seems to be feeling better. We can't seem to get rid of that pesky temperature. It goes up, we give tylenol or motrin, the temp goes down, and as soon as the meds wear off the temp goes back up. Last night it was 102.2. He's still sleeping this morning (it's 9:30) and I'm about to go check on him again. He felt warm the last time I was in there but I was trying not to wake him so I don't know the exact temp.

Thanks for your prayers for our sweet boy. Today I feel like it's just a virus, but I was pretty worried on Tuesday. I'm feeling a bit down that this is what he'll have to go through when he gets sick like this, but it's just the nature of having a shunt. Sorry for the LONG post!