2 ER's, 1 long ambulance ride, but luckily just a virus

What parent says, "luckily just a virus?" Well, I do today because between a cold virus and hydrocephalus, I will take the little virus any day. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we check daily for signs of increased pressure in Isaac's head. Some signs that his brain is getting too much pressure caused by spinal fluid (hydrocephalus) are extreme sleepiness, excessive vomiting, a bulging soft spot, lack of appetite. Well, this Tuesday, Isaac was showing 3 of these things.

I woke Isaac up, fed him and packed him into his carseat for our Tuesday morning trip to Delaware. Gabe goes to preschool once a week there with his cousin. My sister, Amy and I take turns watching the little siblings (Isaac and his cousin Mallory) while Amy and I help out in the classroom some weeks. Well this week, Amy was watching Isaac and I was helping out in Gabe's class. When I got back from school, Isaac was sleeping and Amy said he was not his usual self. He was really sleepy and just seemed a little off, not like his happy self. She had some errands to run so I stayed with her 2 little ones and my two little ones. Isaac still slept and finally I woke him up at 1pm to feed him. He had not eaten but once and usually he eats at least 2 or 3 times by this time of the day. As I fed him he fell asleep. I felt his head and his soft spot was pretty puffy. It did not feel sunken and soft like it usually does. This concerned me, but I tried not to over react and check again in a little bit. He finally finished eating. He wasn't fussy at this point, but he was very quiet. Pretty unusual for him. He then threw up quite a bit, twice. This was the sign that really worried me. I put the three signs together.... increased sleepiness, vomiting, and a puffy soft spot. I was sure that this was it.... his pressure was increasing and shunt surgery loomed in his very near future.

I called Dan, who by the way was in LA for work and would be returning home the next day. Great timing, right? We both agreed we better call Isaac's neurosurgeon. We called him and he suggested we take Isaac to our pediatrician and then they could evaluate him and possibly get a CAT scan in Columbus if they felt we needed to. I headed home from Amy's which was a half hour away, called the ped. They told us to go straight to Nationwide Children's Hospital's ER. We got there around 3pm. I have never been to an ER, but I now know that I should just write out "All about Isaac" because I told his story many times. They took Isaac's temp. and he had 101 fever and he was still pretty tired. Finally, they did a CAT scan which showed increased ventricles that we pretty large. The neurosurgeon on call at Nationwide didn't feel like it was urgent to put in a shunt because there was still space between his head and his skull, but perhaps he would need one soon. I was very clear that no matter what, he would NOT be getting a shunt from anyone but his neurosurgeon in Cincinnati. He knows Isaac and we trust him. Nationwide suggested we transport Isaac in a mobile transport unit (basically a high tech ambulance) to Cincinnati's ER. I really just wanted to take him home and feed him (he wasn't allowed to eat at this point because we didnt know if he would need surgery that night or the next morning) and then take him to Cincinnati myself, but I wanted the best for Isaac. So we headed to Cincy at 10pm by ambulance to the next ER. By this time Dan is 2000 miles in flight home, I am riding with Isaac, and my dad and Gabe are driving down 71 South to Grammy and Papa's (Thankfully Dan's parents live in Cincy so we had a place to stay and thankfully my dad was helping me out with the boys since Dan was out of town). We went to Cincinnati Children's ER and took the CAT scan films. The neurosurgeon's nurse practioner who has known Isaac literally since the night he was born, came in and looked at Isaac. By this time Isaac's soft spot felt a little better and his fever was going down too. The nurse practioner and a radiologist reviewed and compared his CAT scan to his last MRI and thankfully the images looked the same. That meant he did not have too much pressure. It turns out that fevers can cause baby's soft spots to bulge a little bit and cause other symptoms that are the same as hydrocephalus. We left the ER at 3:30 and went to Grammy and Papa's for the night.

The next morning, Isaac's neurosurgeon called me directly and reassured that it appears that Isaac's viral bug was causing these symptoms. We were so relieved that Isaac "just had a virus". He has been pretty under the weather the past two days, but his fever finally went down this evening and he started to perk up and chatter at dinner tonight. I think he is on the mends and hopefully our happy little guy will be back to his happy self by the weekend and hopefully we will not be visiting an ER's again!