Kinda Like 'Nam.

First off, sorry about the disjointed nature of the posting from yesterday. I was updating via text messegaing from my phone and because the service is patchy in the hospital not only were the posts chopped up but they were frequently out of order. You have to be a sleuth to figure it out. On the other hand, I guess it was a direct reflection of what we were experiencing! Between getting little bits of info and there, we had no clue what was going on. This is what we have been able to piece together since yesterday. The surgery itself was a definite success, though there were a few surprises. One of which being that when they took out Leo's shunt of 8 months they discovered that it was not working. Huh??? He never showed any symptoms of shunt failure and brain compression, so what the heck? In between the sobering list of items now holding risks for our guy, the nuero surgeon dropped this little bombshell on us. Does that mean he doesn't need a shunt? Because his daily 8 ounces of fluid has been going SOMEWHERE! This is the least of their worries right not, but it is something they will definitely be exploring in a few days. Anyway they were successful in reconstruction his skull and smoothing out all his hard ridges and overlaps, though he lost tons of blood. They also drained about 4 or 5 inches worth of fluid from his head during which they visibly saw the brain decompress and settle deeper into his skull. It was kinda like the brain going: "ahhhhh" and relaxing into a comfy couch.
So right now, the concerns that they, (and we) are dealing with is trying to get him stable after all that blood loss. Because of the fluid that was pumped into him, his whole body is swelling considerably, and it's a fine balance of finding the right interventions to keep him stable. Since we don't really know what everything means, it was pretty scary to watch the PICU team rushing around with tubes, blood, breathing things, and seeing my handsome boy pale as snow and hooked up to every possible thing. Because all his IVs in his limbs started failing after a while they had to put in a central line into his neck. We haven't been able to see what his new head looks like since they had to put in several drains for blood since his wounds are still oozing and because of the bandaging. But his forehead looks all smooth and sweet, even though it's getting pretty puffy. To tell you the truth, I lost it a bit last night, and after crying in the corner for a couple hours came down with a roaring migraine and so Justin and I decamped for a while to sleep at home and recover our senses. Sorry for all the gory details but they are imprinted into our minds for eternity. It's a battle field and our little lion is out there, and all we can do is watch, and pray. It's horrifying and there was nothing that prepared us for this.
Now that we have a corner in his PICU room I'll try to get the laptop hooked up for easier posting. Thank you so much for bearing this with us, for all your messages and prayers, and for your continued love for our little hero.