Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Long Day of Appointments Part 2

That last message sent before I meant it to.

Dr. Hung wants us to go ahead and get Jack fitted for some ear plugs too. He wants Jack to wear them even in the bath tub.

Dr. Hung said if these measures don't stop the infections he may remove Jack's ear tubes and replace them with a tube made of a different material. He said that some people actually react to something in the tube that creates these chronic cycles. Also, he said that the tubes themselves are probably colonized with bacteria and taking the tubes out and rinsing the ears with an antibiotic solution may take care of it all.

We were encouraged that he seems to believe that we can resolve this chronic cycle medically.

Our final appointment of the day was with Dr. Price, the neurosurgeon. We got good news there too. She was very happy with the MRI. She had it all ready for us to review. There is a remarkable difference between 2007 and now. The ventricles are so much smaller. Compared to last February, the ventricles are slightly smaller. Jack's head circumference is exactly the same as last February but he is 18 month's older so the gap between Jack's head circumference and the growth chart is getting smaller. Jack has no chiari malformation (a condition which occurs when increased pressure causes a portion of the brain stem to be pushed into the spinal canal). All of this means that Jack's VP shunt is doing it's job.

Jack still has a large cranial defect on his right temple. Dr. Price says that she may close that up in a future surgery but she does not feel that it is necessary to do surgery for that alone.

We'll see Dr. Fearon tomorrow and get his take on everything.

It's been a long, tiring but very good day.

Jack was so great with the whole day. He said he wanted chicken for dinner. We stopped at the first chicken place and got that big boy some chicken.

5 comments:

Alison said...

Wow - what a big day. It sounds like Jack was a champ. He definitely deserved that chicken!

Mary @ Parenthood said...

Wow - makes me tired just to read about it! I had a lot of ear infections as a kid including tubes etc so I really feel for Jack. Poor guy.

Melissa aka Equidae said...

that is very encouraging and I am so happy for you guys

Sarah and the Gentlemen said...

I'm so glad you received good reports. It sounds like it was a very, very long day. I was reading through several of your blog posts that I've missed too in order to catch up. Jack looks like he's getting so big and he seems like a pro with that cane.

mommytoalot said...

Wow...what a long day...but the outcome is good.
I am happy to hear he doesn't have to have surgery right now. If you can keep those ear infections at bay..that would be awesome. Will Jack keep the earplugs in?