Nuclear Testing

Today ended up being an eventful day. A lot of sitting around, but still eventful. I got ready this morning and called down to tell the nurse that I was available to nurse Lewis whenever he got hungry. He had already eaten twice this morning and took 80mL each time! Since he had just eaten, I got some stuff done around here until it was time for the next feeding. I got that call at about 1 and was over at the NICU by about 1:15. That's when everything started happening... Dr. Foody had been by earlier and decided that there was no need to wait a couple days to do the Nuclear test of the shunt so he gave the orders to have it done today. As soon as I got down to feed Lewis, we got the call that they wanted him down in radiology at 1:45. So I quick nursed him. We didn't really have time for a full feeding... just a snack. As the nurse was running around getting stuff ready to transport Lewis the physical therapist came down to check on his progress since the last time she saw him. Bad timing.... so she'll be back Thursday.

So on to the Nuclear test. Basically all they do is inject radioactive stuff into his shunt and take pictures at regular intervals to make sure the shunt is draining properly. While they had the needle in to inject the radioactive stuff they also took some cerebral spinal fluid for testing. (That ended up coming back with a high protein level which could cause some blockage but we haven't talked to the doctors about that yet.) The first pictures showed that the fluid was going into the ventricles fine but we couldn't see any movement down the catheter. After waiting a while they decided to do an adjustment to the shunt and see if that would help move things along. I got to see them adjust it and it is pretty amazing! They stick a plastic disc over the shunt and then insert a compass-looking thing into the disc. The compass pointed to 2.0 which is what his shunt was set to at the time. Then they took out the compass and put in a dial. The doctor turned the dial to 1.0 and then put the compass back in. This time the compass pointed to 1.0. Pretty crazy how simple the whole thing was... thank goodness for programmable shunts! So once the shunt was adjusted we started to see drainage down the catheter. They took a series of pictures over about an hour then waited an hour and took a final picture. They concluded that the shunt is now draining properly but it will ultimately be up to Dr. Foody as to what to do next. All in all, we were down in radiology for a little over 4 hours. Luckily the nurse brought a bottle of breastmilk down with us to hold him over. I also nursed him during our hour-long break between pictures. He was such a trooper and just chomped away on his pacifier the whole time they were messing with him!

Plastic surgery never came by today to change to the new type of dressing. Hopefully they do that soon so that we can get his back healed quickly and he can come home!! There was a meal at the Renucci house tonight. Coleman and I are always on time to those... and we know just where to stand so that when the line starts forming we're at the front! But tonight we were late and just got the leftovers. They didn't have any brats left (which I know Coleman was disappointed about) but we still appreciated the free hot meal. Tomorrow groups are coming in to serve breakfast and dinner! Hot dogs again for dinner but that's ok, we'll still be at the front of the line!

We're very thankful that our prayers were answered with just an adjustment of the shunt. God is powerful! He can move mountains and He can move blockages in shunts. We're praying that the shunt will continue to function as it should. We also know that God's hand on Lewis's back is better than any new bandage! God is good, he's blessed us with a handsome little boy, and we can't wait to bring him home! Thanks for all your continued prayers!