Our Holiday story:

Well, I am sure most of you know by now that we ended up spending Christmas and New Years in All Children's Hospital.  We ended up taking Selah to the ER on 12/23 in the late morning because her fontanelle (soft spot) was bulging and tight, which is the tell-tale sign of a malfunctioning shunt.  They "tapped" her shunt in the ER and the initial results came back as no shunt infection.  They also did an MRI, shunt-series of xrays and ultrasound of her belly, and no signs of shunt malfunction were found.  The neurosurgeons decided to admit Selah and watch her.  She quickly went from not feeling so good to feeling very badly with an extremely tender belly and she could hardly open her eyes over night.  The next day, Christmas eve, the neurosurgeon decided to externalize her shunt from her belly.  So at 7PM on Christmas eve, Selah had her first surgery.  Her shunt continued to function, but there was an infection in her abdomen.  The doctors decided to culture her CSF in her shunt daily to determine if the infection was just in her belly or also in her shunt.  Then, on 12/27, Selah went in for her second surgery to place a central line (CVL).  She was getting lots of antibiotics and kept loosing her peripheral lines.  The interventional radiologist placed the line in her left femural vein.  The entire left leg ended up turning dark purple in the recovery room.  An ultrasound was done to check the blood flow to the leg, and the doctor decided to just watch the leg.  Well, in the meantime, Selah's cultures from her shunt ended up coming back positive for enterobacter, which meant her whole shunt had to be replaced, so we prepared for her third surgery on the 29th.  It was about 2AM on the 29th, when the nurse noticed that Selah's left leg swelled up to almost twice the originial size.  We then took Selah down to radiology to have an ultrasound done, where it was discovered that she had a blood clot from the central line that was placed.  At 3AM, an ICU nurse came and pulled the central line.  That morning, then, Selah went into surgery to have her shunt removed and a new central line placed in her left subclavian vein.  Selah did great through all three of her surgeries, and now we just had to wait for negative cultures in her CSF.  Selah ended up with an external shunt that came directly from her skull and drained her CSF into bag.  She was still receiving IV antibiotics three times a day and her CSF was still tested every morning.  Finally, on 1/9/12, Selah had been on antibiotics for ten days after her first negative culture, so her new shunt could be placed.  Her fourth and final surgery went well.  She has a new shunt still on the left side of her head but it empties into the right side of her abdomen instead of the left.  We were sent home the next day on 1/10/12 after a few more doses of antibiotics.