June 07 - A Day Full of Bad News

On Sunday, we prepared to get discharged from the hospital, and take Shelby home to start life with our new family. Tiffany's exam went fine and they started her paper work. At 11:30 a.m., Shelby's pediatrician came in to do a routine exam. We told him we were ready to go home and he literally said, "Let me take a quick look at this cutie, then I'll be happy to oblige". He found some irregularities on her head that he could not feel the previous day because of swelling from her hematoma, and thought that maybe she had fractured her skull during birth. He ordered an MRI at about 3:00, just to be sure everything was okay. At 3:00, Trip went with the nurse to take her down for the MRI. She slept through the whole thing and as they came back up to the room, we were told that Dr. Love was already reviewing the results. We waited for over 2 hours (our bags were already packed to go home), and were starting to get a little nervous. After 5:00, Dr. Love came in and sat down to talk to us. He told us that Shelby's skull was not fractured, but that she had a condition that might require surgery soon. He diagnosed it as Hydrocephalus. As a result of this news we decided to move Shelby to N.I.C.U. to be watched more closely. Of course at this point, we were very upset. Dr. Love hugged us, and went back upstairs to consult with the Neonatologist and Neurosurgeon. We called our good friend, David Bradley, and he came over to pray with us before Shelby was moved upstairs. Tiffany had already been discharged from the hospital, but we were given a "sleep room" down the hall from her. Once in N.I.C.U., we were informed that the fluid in her brain was more substantial than they first suspected. He showed us her MRI slides and what we saw was absolutely terrifying. We were told that Shelby would require brain surgery to place a shunt to drain fluid from her brain either that night or the next morning. Even later that night (about 9:30) we finally met with the neurosurgeon on call. He re-diagnosed Shelby's condition as Ventriculomegally which means that one of her ventricles had swollen significantly and was full of blood. He recommended that we be transferred to Duke Hospital to see a pediatric neurosurgeon because there were none in Asheville. We were told that the transfer would happen either that night or on Monday morning. Obviously, this was a lot for us to process in just a 4-hour period. That morning, we thought we were taking our baby home, then later that night, our girl was facing brain surgery and a trip to Duke Hospital.


Needless to say, this was a terrible day, and the news kept getting worse and worse. Right now, the only good news is that this was caught early (almost by a fluke), and that Shelby seems to be acting normally for an infant. We are unsure what the long term effects will be, and we are just trying to focus on the next couple of days and weeks.