I know that I constantly give praise and thanks to God for Amos' continued overall good health, for his lack of hospital stays and for his awesome growth, both in mind and body.
I simply cannot stop. With Amos' birth and with his hydrocephalus, everyone said, "We don't know what the future holds...we'll have to wait and see...and hope for the best." Sure, I heard alot of worst case scenarios, things to watch for and possible outcomes. But since our release from the hospital 2 years ago tomorrow, Amos has not had even a shadow of a problem with his shunt, and even more so, is doing really really well.
This was confirmed by our visit with the neurosurgeon today, for a checkup. Since our last appointment, six months ago, we changed neurosureons and felt a sigh of relief today after meeting with the new one. He was so proficient, gentle and easy to talk to and, the best part is, he gave Amos a glowing review. He looked at him for a minute, checked his head, his belly, his toes and said, "He looks outstanding. Beautiful." I could have hugged him and cried. Then he went to look at the last xrays and said that the pressure of 110 (ironically, for you PYM fans!) was a good place to keep him, and that most adult brains function at that pressure number. (Sorry that I can't explain it any further!).
He kept saying that Amos' brain is looking as great as any of our brains and that even though it's possible that Amos might be outgrowing his shunt (meaning that the catheter is not in the middle of the ventricle any more, but on the outskirts, due to natural brain growth and is thus not draining as much fluid anymore), that he's basically going to wait until Amos shows signs (headache, irritability) of shunt failure and then will operate to revise the shunt. That was music to our ears. Since the bloodclot that caused the nasty hydrocephalus cleared up in Nov of '06, Amos has had almost the opposite condition--slit ventricles--and they've had to keep turning up the pressure so there's more fluid in there, not less. So we've always wondered if he's cured from hydrocephalus. None of our other neurosurgeons have answered that positively, in fact, they've all said he'll probably always need a shunt. But Dr. Boaz has been the first one to say that he looks great now and let's see what happens and that he doesn't want to operate until it's extremely necessary. He was very positive but also very knowledgable and professional and basically gave us the opposite impression that our previous neurosurgeon gave. She was nice and professional, but seemed unknowledgable with Amos' type of shunts and scattered and distracted. I know that if she needs to operate on him for whatever reason, that she'll do a great job. But we are glad that Dr. Boaz was open to seeing us and enjoyed our visit. The whole way home, I kept saying, "Praise God" for such an awesome diagnosis.
I feel now, more than ever, a burden to really cultivate his little brain--it holds so much potential and we fought so hard for it. God has given us a gift in Amos and I feel more of a responsibility now, to steward this gift for God's glory. I don't know how that looks. But I want to figure it out!
I simply cannot stop. With Amos' birth and with his hydrocephalus, everyone said, "We don't know what the future holds...we'll have to wait and see...and hope for the best." Sure, I heard alot of worst case scenarios, things to watch for and possible outcomes. But since our release from the hospital 2 years ago tomorrow, Amos has not had even a shadow of a problem with his shunt, and even more so, is doing really really well.
This was confirmed by our visit with the neurosurgeon today, for a checkup. Since our last appointment, six months ago, we changed neurosureons and felt a sigh of relief today after meeting with the new one. He was so proficient, gentle and easy to talk to and, the best part is, he gave Amos a glowing review. He looked at him for a minute, checked his head, his belly, his toes and said, "He looks outstanding. Beautiful." I could have hugged him and cried. Then he went to look at the last xrays and said that the pressure of 110 (ironically, for you PYM fans!) was a good place to keep him, and that most adult brains function at that pressure number. (Sorry that I can't explain it any further!).
He kept saying that Amos' brain is looking as great as any of our brains and that even though it's possible that Amos might be outgrowing his shunt (meaning that the catheter is not in the middle of the ventricle any more, but on the outskirts, due to natural brain growth and is thus not draining as much fluid anymore), that he's basically going to wait until Amos shows signs (headache, irritability) of shunt failure and then will operate to revise the shunt. That was music to our ears. Since the bloodclot that caused the nasty hydrocephalus cleared up in Nov of '06, Amos has had almost the opposite condition--slit ventricles--and they've had to keep turning up the pressure so there's more fluid in there, not less. So we've always wondered if he's cured from hydrocephalus. None of our other neurosurgeons have answered that positively, in fact, they've all said he'll probably always need a shunt. But Dr. Boaz has been the first one to say that he looks great now and let's see what happens and that he doesn't want to operate until it's extremely necessary. He was very positive but also very knowledgable and professional and basically gave us the opposite impression that our previous neurosurgeon gave. She was nice and professional, but seemed unknowledgable with Amos' type of shunts and scattered and distracted. I know that if she needs to operate on him for whatever reason, that she'll do a great job. But we are glad that Dr. Boaz was open to seeing us and enjoyed our visit. The whole way home, I kept saying, "Praise God" for such an awesome diagnosis.
I feel now, more than ever, a burden to really cultivate his little brain--it holds so much potential and we fought so hard for it. God has given us a gift in Amos and I feel more of a responsibility now, to steward this gift for God's glory. I don't know how that looks. But I want to figure it out!
1 comment:
Wow! Incredible! What a gift...
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