Shunt mystery

Shelby's yearly check-up with the neurosurgeon at Duke Children's was yesterday. The best part about this visit was spending the night with my cousin Katy and her husband Pat in Durham the night before--Pat makes the best mojitos!

Anyway, Shelby's appointments started with a rapid MRI scan. Shelby has developed major doctor office/procedure anxiety since her surgery last summer (understandably) and she started screaming as soon as we walked in the door. One nurse had to lay on top of her and hold her down and still for the duration of the 5 minute scan. She screamed the whole time and the poor nurse had pinch marks on her arm from Shelby. I'm not sure who was more traumatized, Shelby or the nurse (or me)...

We left the MRI office and headed to the neurosurgery clinic to meet Shelby's new neurosurgeon and to get the results of her scan. I'll do my best to explain what Dr. Muh told us. Shelby's ventricles are more swollen than her post-surgery baseline scans last July. Dr. Muh says that this could mean one of two things. Either Shelby's ventricles shrank way down after her surgery last June and then continued to change and get to a new baseline after we did the follow-up MRI in July of 2013 or Shelby's shunt is failing. We've noticed now symptoms of a shunt failure, but there were no symptoms last summer either. We go back for another scan on August 15th to determine if she needs another shunt revision. If the shunt is failing, the MRI will show more swelling of the ventricles. Bleh! Such is life with a shunt, I guess....

Screaming and thrashing around and fighting nurses through an MRI is hard work. Shelby slept for an hour while we waited to meet with Dr. Muh.