Pain In The Neck

Carly really is a remarkable little girl. This surgery/recovery has been the most painful for her and she needed a lot of medication to get through the first night but she is already bouncing back, happily looking at books with Christa as they lay on the bed together. Because Carly's belly wasn't absorbing the CSF from her shunt they redirected the drainage to a vein. They planned to use a minimally invasive technique to place the drainage tube into a minor vein but they were not able to pass the tube successfully so they had to use a more invasive approach placing the catheter in her jugular vein. (The catheter runs from here to the entrance of her heart where it can drain the fluid directly into her bloodstream.) This required an incision, cutting through the tissue and muscle in her neck for careful placement of the distal end of the shunt which is the source of the aches and pains that she is dealing with this time around. She is recovering well now and it should heal completely in the next week or so.

Carly is going to have a MRI in a few hours to get an updated image of the tumor to assess how quickly it is growing. Because she has to hold still for an hour or two while the images are taken she will need to be placed under anesthesia for this, but we are hopeful that after she has recovered from the anesthesia she will be allowed to go home. We really appreciate all of the messages that we have received in the last few days, it really helps power us all through this.

Love, Brad