**Updated at the bottom

I am beginning to think my life is becoming similar to a soap opera (with a less attractive cast and even less stylish clothing) because things just keep on coming.

I am just home from an emergency room visit, a three day hospital stay, and yet another surgery for poor Shawn. He is wiped. We are wiped.

What started Friday as what I thought was a cold we caught from all of the doctors' visits, became an all out vomit fest by Monday night and early Tuesday. I knew he wasn't dehydrated yet, so I was going to wait until Tuesday afternoon to get to the pediatrician (her drop in hours). That became more urgent when I woke up after a brief nap Tuesday morning and saw that Shawn's soft spot was starting to bulge and his head was beginning to swell.

I knew that meant this was from his shunt.

From that point on, things are a blur.

I called the ped to get him in first thing in the morning. She set up an appointment at our hospital for a CT scan to confirm my suspicions. Once we knew for sure that it was his shunt, Isaac and I headed out to the nearest hospital with a neurosurgeon (we don't have one in our county), which was two and a half hours away in the lovely morning traffic.

Shawn was admitted on Tuesday night (after a super long emergency room wait) and placed on an IV for dehydration. He had shunt revision surgery yesterday. Of course that meant intubation again. I prayed with everything I had that he would come off that vent quickly. Thankfully, he had been extubated right after the procedure was done! He started eating almost as soon as he was back in his room and continued to do well all night long. We were discharged at around noon today.

He is still tired and looks okay right now, but I am concerned about a few things that still aren't back to normal. I am trying to get his neurologist to see him asap to ease my mind that there isn't any seizure activity going on with him. (I have to call back and talk to his regular receptionist tomorrow. The idiot I talked to today said they didn't have anything until April 6th or something. Umm. I don't think that is acceptable. Hello. He just had surgery on his brain.)

I am so looking forward to a few years--scratch that, a few months--crap, I'll take a few weeks without anything happening to any one of us. Is that too much to ask?

**Update

I think I am so tired that I can't sleep. I hate when that happens. All I want to do is close my eyes for around twenty days and open them refreshed and alert. It doesn't seem it will happen that way...

Anyway, you asked about the shunt. It looks like Shawn was never really sick with anything. The increased pressure in his head was what caused the vomiting. (note to self: question it EVERY time he throws up from here on out) From what the neurosurgeon said, it looked like the shunt was no longer working at all for Shawn. Who knows for how long. They drained "a sizeable amount" of fluid, made his tubing longer, and repositioned it so it reaches the fluid in his ventricles. They tested the removed fluid, and there is no idication of infection in the shunt--great news.

Apparently, shunt revisions are not uncommon. When his shunt was originally placed, it was optimal for draining the fluid. But, when the pressure in head decreased and his head size came back down to normal, the shunt was no longer in a good place. (I think of it like this. You know the large laundry detergent bottles with the pour spouts on the side? The spouts work great until the liquid level falls below where the spout is. Then you have to tilt the bottle and move it around until the liquid can be moved to the spout. The shunt was kind of similar for Shawn. Where the fluid was in his brain no longer reached the spout of the shunt. Make sense?)

Shawn will most likely need his shunt for the rest of his life. It is possible for some children to have their shunts removed, but this incident pretty much told us that his ventricles are still clogged and won't allow the spinal fluid to drain from his head down his spinal column. Further revisions may need to be done to reposition the shunt to the appropriate place as he grows. I want to believe that this was the last revision that Shawn will have, though.

One of the things that gets me most, even more than the surgery itself I think, is that they had to re shave the little stubbly hairs that finally started growing on his scar from the first operation. :-( That thought brought tears to my eyes when it first occured to me. Isn't it strange what the mind will grasp onto when it is stressed and tired? I haven't seen the actual incision site, as it is bandaged, so I don't know if my imagination is making it worse than it actually is or not.

Another sad thing for me is that Shawn has lost the tiny smiles he started giving me just before this happened. It breaks my heart. I pray that they return quickly to his sweet little face.

But, as an interesting twist, Shawn has had absolutely no reflux issues since he started eating again last night. He is still getting his zan.tac, but we have not given him any cereal to thicken his formula and he seems fine. No crying. No squirming to get away from the bottle. No wet burps. He is fine so far. I am not sure if this means that the feed problems started as the pressure in his brain increase (another note to self on that) or if it is just that he is damn hungry from not having food in his body for days. I don't know, but I'll take it.