The past few days have been pretty crazy. Despite the chaos
I wanted to jot down a few things about the past few days…if nothing else to
look back on and be thankful for our “normal craziness.”
I tried having Chandlor’s Birthday Party at the park for the
second year in a row. Fail. Which was fine. I moved his party to the Marvin
Vinson Building. I found out an hour before the party that they needed to close
down 30 minutes before our party was scheduled to be over. Okay we will rush
through things. I ordered Chandlor’s cake for October 12th instead
of October 11th .We ended up with a Wal-mart cake instead. Even
though so many things went wrong Chandlor had a blast!! He loved getting to see
everyone, play with all of the kiddos and open his presents. I really can’t
complain. The party turned out pretty great despite everything that went wrong.
Thanks again so much to everyone who came.
Saturdays are Joey’s days with Chandlor. Around 8pm Chandlor
started vomiting and continued to vomit throughout the night. Uriah also
started vomiting. To me it sounded like a virus since both Uriah and Chandlor
were sick, but I called the neurosurgeon on call at ACH to make sure that they felt
the same way. They were concerned and wanted for us to bring Chandlor in.
Chandlor has hydrocephalus. Due to his Spinal Cord not completely forming excess
spinal fluid becomes trapped on his brain. He has a VP programmable shunt
placed behind his right ear to drain this excess fluid into his abdomen. A
shunt has an average life of 5 years but can last 2 days or 15 years; you never
know when they will fail. Some signs of shunt malfunction are: vomiting, excessive
sleepiness, not being able to look up without moving your head, seizures etc.
Therefore, every time Chandlor vomits I have to be concerned that his shunt is
malfunctioning. If Chandlor has a fever or also has diarrhea it is a lot easier
to say that he is vomiting because of a virus, but unfortunately at this
particular time he was only vomiting.
This is a VP Programmable Shunt like the one Chandlor has.
Since Uriah was in bed sick I took Kendyl to my in-laws and
then Joey and I took Chandlor to ACH together. We made it to the ER.
Thankfully, the ACH ER sees their patients in order of necessity vs. arrival
time so Chandlor was immediately taken back. They did a cat scan to check the
size of his ventricles in his brain to see if there was any excess fluid and
did a shunt series which is pretty much an x-ray of his abdomen and head to
make sure that all of the pieces of the shunt were in the correct place.
The CT came back semi-inconclusive. Some parts of his
ventricles were larger compared to the last scan and some of them were actually
smaller. Neurosurgery (and momma) were pretty sure that this was just a virus,
but radiology was concerned and wanted for Chandlor to be monitored overnight.
By this point it was around 5pm and Chandlor was looking and feeling much better.
He was able to keep down his Gatorade as well as his dinner. He also didn’t
make a peep when the nurse put in his IV. I couldn’t believe it! This kid
constantly surprises me.
Around 7pm I started vomiting. Understandably, they will not
let sick non-patients stay in the hospital overnight. We had a super sweet
nurse who watched Chandlor sleep while Joey took me to a hotel. As much as I
didn’t want to be sick…and especially didn’t want to be away from my sick baby
I can’t tell you what a relief it was for three of us to be sick. I just knew
this had to be a virus.
The very next morning Joey got sick. Luckily he made it
through the night without getting sick so that we didn’t have to call another
family member to come and stay with Chandlor. The neurosurgeon came and looked
at Chandlor and decided that he did in fact have a stomach virus and that we
could go home YAY! At this point Chandlor had been symptom free for over 24
hours. After they released Chandlor from the hospital they came and picked me
up from the hotel. We slowly but surely made it home.
After making it home my in-laws came over with Kendyl to
help with Chandlor. I really don’t brag on them enough. They were so so helpful.
I was able to go get some rest while they took care of both babies until Uriah got
home from work. Chandlor ended up eating three pieces of pizza and keeping his
entire boost (milk) down. It was so great to see him feeling so much better! Just in case I lost you this was Monday.
Tuesday morning Chandlor was still looking and acting great
so since he had been symptom free for 48 hours I let him go to daycare. Around
noon daycare called to let me know that he had vomited again. Poor guy! I
called Neurosurgery and since his CT looked a little off on Sunday they wanted
to see him again. So back to ACH we went. My in-laws watched Kendyl for us
again (very thankful for them!) and Uriah was feeling better so he was able to
go this time. 8 hours and another CT and shunt series later they determined
that there had been no change and that this was still a stomach virus, thank
goodness!!! When they are evaluating you
for a shunt malfunction you cannot eat just in case you have to immediately be
taken back for surgery, I’ve never seen my boy eat a small French fry so fast
;) he was pretty excited to be eating and going home!
These past few days have been pretty rough, but it has made
me so thankful for Chandlor’s health! I hate that we had to expose his little
body to so much radiation in such a short span of time, but it was necessary and
gave us the answers that we needed. I/We are all so blessed to live near
Arkansas Children’s Hospital. It is truly a great place and I owe them so much.
I am thankful that my husband doesn’t think twice about Chandlor’s dad and me
taking Chandlor wherever he needs to go at any time of day. I’m thankful that I
didn’t have to worry about Kendyl because she was being cared for by her daddy
and my awesome in-laws! I’m thankful for everyone’s prayers! It was so nice to
see how many people love and care for my boy. I’m especially thankful for my
Gramme. It seems like she always knows just what to say to make me feel better!
I know that this is really just a bunch of rambling, but I
wanted to fill everyone in on what has been going on. I also wanted to write
(type) this down so that I can look back and laugh about it once I’m not so
tired ;) I will have another post for Chandlor's birthday party once I have time to upload pictures!
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