Shunts Away!

Here is just a quick update for all those waiting and praying for our Leo, before we go collapse in bed for the night. Leo was prepped and ready for surgery early this morning, but they only took him around two in the afternoon. We were there with him for most of the day today, just waiting and biting our nails. The anesthesiologist, a very nice British guy, came up around lunch to talk to us about the risks etc in Leo's case. Apparently because of his tucked up little chin, the regular breathing tube could not be used without lots of maneuvering and fiber optic tools. The anesthesiologist decided to use another breathing aid that isn't normally used for babies; a little tube that only goes down into his larynx, and does not do much more then blow some air down. Most of the breathing support would have to come from Leo himself. Typically under anesthesia babies need help to breathe, so the anesthesia team takes over the breathing. However the side effect of that is the newborns have to restart their own breathing once the tube comes out. The method they used with Leo does not suspend his breathing, so he wouldn't have that tense post-op moment of getting his own lungs back. Anyway, as you can imagine there are a lot of risks with this method, as they really don't have much control over his lungs during the surgery. We signed the grim papers with ink and tears, and then watched as they took our baby away. The surgery took two hours.
Anyway, as we have been shown over and over this past week, Leo isn't a quitter. He breathed on his own through the whole thing, and they managed to get the shunt in. As they wheeled him back into his cozy NICU room, I almost didn't even recognize him, because of the changes in his face and head. He really had an astounding amount of fluid in there. Apparently his head will come down in size some more before it settles and firms up. Right now it feels like a mushy pomegranate. The surgeon said it would take a couple weeks for this to go away, and until then we need to be very gentle holding his head, and turn him often, kinda like a rotisserie chicken. If all goes well and the shunt doesn't get infected, we might have him home with us next week. Thanks everyone for your prayers. It's been a long hard day, and like all the past other ones since Leo came into our lives, it's been an adventure. I don't see this changing anytime soon. :-) Our Leo has a plan and our job, I guess, is just to wait and see what happens next.