June 10 - Finally Some Better News

Well, I better retract my previous statement about the doctors at Duke. Apparently the resident neonatal doctor and the resident neurosurgeon were very helpful, and gave Tiff a lot of information. The news is getting a little better. It sounds like they will be performing surgery this Friday or Monday to place a shunt in Shelby's brain. This is a pretty minor surgery as far as brain surgery goes, and recovery time is only a few days. It also means, I believe, that there was indeed some pressure in the brain from the fluid. Once that pressure is removed I think it may be possible that some of the displaced brain tissue will be able to function normally. Apparently it kind of depends on the amount of pressure that was there. The resident did say it was an "impressive amount of fluid" whatever that means. At this point we are unsure about the percentage of the brain that will be damaged, or what that means for her long term. We may have a better idea after surgery, but likely we wont know what the extent of the damage is until we watch her start to develop. We will have to go back to Duke a few times every year for quite some time, but that is no big deal.

At least there is an end in site now, and we will know even more tomorrow after Tiff talks to the attending neurosurgeon.

Anyway, here are some more Shelby pics: