Little Lena has been sick. Since Friday Lena has been vomiting off and on. When she woke up yesterday I thought she was all better. Friday she vomited up almost everything she took in. Saturday she lived on grape Pedialyte, no vomit. Sunday she vomited once after breakfast then kept all of her formula and cereal down. So why wouldn’t I think she was better Monday morning? Half way through breakfast she vomited up all of her formula, yogurt and cereal. Poor baby. Tried just formula, nope vomited that up too. Grape pedialyte was okay but there must have been some formula left in her tummy cause some of that came up too.  In between vomiting she was happy though, not her energetic bubbly self but happy and playing, not miserable and irritable like with Shunt trouble but I have to admit I was beginning to worry.

I think I called every doctor I know yesterday and as they called me back I check off the possible reasons for her illness. I tell you when you have a kid with a shunt, especially a baby who can not talk and tell you what hurts, every time they get sick you have to wonder if its the shunt or are they just sick. It was the neurosurgeon, Dr. Sadanand that I really wanted to talk to, he knows Lena well and I trust his opinion. Like me, he didn’t seem to think Lena was having shunt trouble but told me to bring her in to see him on Wednesday if it didn’t resolve.

Then we got to talking. He asked about Wayne, who has not been feeling well for quite some time. He has been having constant very painful headaches and nothing seems to help. So what did my daughter’s great neurosurgeon do? He told be to bring them both in and that he would see Wayne and get him a CT scan to rule out any serious illness (a process that can take months here). He was worried about him, he is such a great Dr. he really truly cares about his patients (and their families). 

So off we all went to the Emergency Room at Royal University Hospital. Lena went to see the Pediatrician since we really didn’t think it was a shunt thing (praying that it wasn’t really) and Wayne went off to be evaluated by the neurosurgery resident and set up for a CT scan. Several hours later, the Pediatrician confirmed that he believed Lena has a virus. Apparently her symptoms were the same as about 90% of the kids in the Pediatric Emergency Department yesterday evening. She was given a nasal swab to determine what kind of virus she has, which will also give us some indication of how long my little one will be vomiting. It better be a virus, I do not want to go back there again. Discharged, we went off to find Wayne.

A CT scan, blood work, a neurosurgical examination and a neurology examination later. We still do not know what is wrong with him  and why he is in so much pain. Dr. Sadanand looked over the CT scan and does not see any abnormality at all, not even chronic sinusitis (which is what he thought it would be). Thankfully he did not see any evidence of tumors or abnormalities either. The neurologist evaluated him for a couple other conditions and found nothing. SO… he wants an MRI done to get a clearer picture. However, he told us that he does not expect to find anything, but wants to rule out the possibility. He believes that Wayne does indeed have a chronic, antibiotic resistant case of sinusitis that did not show up on the scan because he has been on antibiotics for so long. Another possibility is BAD migraines. In any case we should get to the bottom of all of this in the next week or two. Did I mention that Dr. Sadanand wasn’t even on call last night but stayed to help us out and make sure Wayne was okay? He is the best Neurosurgeon ever.

If you read this Venkat, Thanks again.