Thursday, September 15, 2011

One week post surgery

Shelby is pretty much back to her old self one-week after her shunt revision. She is elbow crawling all over the place, talking up a storm, trying to pull up on furniture, demanding that her favorite songs be sung (with the proper hand motions, mind you) and continuing to keep us on our toes in terms of supervision.

We went to the pediatrician today (Dr. Love) for a general post-surgery check-up. Both incision sites are healing nicely, and Shelby now has clearance to return to PT, OT, and preschool. She'll resume those activities next week. The only difference we have noticed in Shelby since the shunt malfunction is her eyes. They are far more "jiggly" than they were before and they seem to get stuck upwards from time to time. Her brain was under pressure and the ventricles were enlarged during the shunt malfunction, so I am assuming the eyes may have been affected. I have emailed Dr. Grant (her neurosurgeon) about this and Dr. Love suggested I also contact Shelby's ophthalmologist as well. Possibly all this will go back to normal as the new shunt does its thing. I am really hoping Shelby's vision hasn't been affected by the shunt malfunction...time will tell. 

This experience was scary for sure, but not unexpected. Shunts can stop working for various reasons at any time. Now that we have one shunt revision under out belts, I feel like we know what to look for in terms of symptoms, and we won't question ourselves as much the next time this happens. We are hoping that Shelby will have this shunt for a really long time though. Thanks so much for your continued thoughts and prayers! We felt very loved and supported last week!

Shelbs doing "the elbow crawl".
Trying to pull up (she needs to be using lefty though).
She is obsessed with cars and trucks and says "vroom vroom" as she pushes them. Love it!

1 comment:

  1. LOOOOVE me some Shelby. Very glad she's back to her sassy self.

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