Little Straws: The Latest and Greatest

Elliot has kicked off his summer with a bang...

We took an impromptu trip to Cincinnati for a couple of days and Elliot experienced his first plane ride. Needless to say, he is a better traveling right now than his mom and dad. We were a hot mess going through security with all our baby junk and Elliot just breezed through. It was fun to show Elliot around Cincinnati. We were able to show him off to a few of his fan club members while we were there but we will be back again towards the end of the summer to hopefully make some more rounds to the fans. He had fun with his Aunties, got to meet his Great Grandma and I'm not sure his Grandma put him down for more than 30 seconds. Elliot got to experience Montgomery Inn Ribs with his Dad and Skyline Chili will have to wait for our next visit...I know I know, I can't believe I was in Cincinnati and didn't go to Skyline, but we had a jam-packed 2 days and never found the time.

Alright now for the medical update. We spent the ENTIRE day at Children's yesterday with Elliot's routine check-ups. He started off the morning with a quick MRI...and usually Elliot is a champ through these 3 minute MRI's, but I think the older he is getting the more he realizes this is not normal and he doesn't like it. He screamed his way through while Byron and I stood in the room helpless and trying to talk to him over the LOUD machine noises. With that out of the way, we headed up to neurosurgery to meet with Dr. O'Neill. Lots has changed with Elliot's shunt since our visit a month ago so we were excited to hear Dr. O'Neill's impressions. Elliot's shunt finally does not have that fluid sac around it and the doc was very pleased to see that his shunt was without a doubt doing its job. He was impressed with Elliot's head control and even held him a little this time so that Elliot could show him all his new tricks. Elliot even slimmed him a little with his copious amount of saliva. He then pulled up Elliot's MRI and his first word was "Wow", but a good kinda "wow". Elliot's brain has filled his entire skull now!!! and his lateral ventricles (which were the area in his brain that was swollen with Cerebral Spinal Fluid) are down to a "normal" size. Elliot's ventricles at birth were at 55mm and yesterday they were at 5.5mm, which is amazing news to hydro-parents ears.

We did ask Dr. O'Neill about Elliot's head and its future, ha. I'm going to try and explain this so it makes some sense but bear with me. Elliot's head is elongated length wise and narrow width wise. At this point his skull sutures are still overlapping which typically means that his skull has room to grow which is normal for any infant. The only problem is that we are unsure if his skull has fused in this position which would mean that as Elliot grows his head will only grow back (alien-style) vs. out and more "roundish". So...what does this mean for Elliot? Dr. O'Neill first wants to turn up his shunt valve a bit which means less fluid goes through his shunt to his belly and more fluid builds up in his head (sounds kinda crazy that now we want a little fluid build up in his brain but its teeny bit of fluid build up unlike the massive build-up he was born with). With this extra fluid build up it will hopefully put some pressure on his brain to push his skull out a bit to fix its shape naturally. Dr. O'Neill is going to give it 3 months or so and if it fixes itself...which it will...then great, no big deal. But if it doesn't fix itself then Elliot will have to have reconstructive skull surgery. The surgery sounds scary but Dr. O'Neill just wants to prep us in case this is the route we have to go with Elliot, and they really like to do the surgery before 9 months. With how well Elliot is doing, I just think this kid has it in him to fix it himself...and of course Byron and I will talk to him every night about the surgery to scare him into fixing his skull himself...kidding only kidding...

Overall it was great news from Dr. O'Neill who again mentioned that he is thrilled with how well Elliot is doing since he had quite an impressive case of Hydrocephalus (we like that he used the word impressive instead of severe). After this appointment we headed to Noodles N Company for some much deserved celebratory lunch and then back to Children's for Elliot's ophthalmology appointment. They had to dilate his eyes which consisted of the nurse having to pry open his little eyes, but after the drops were in, he breezed through the rest of the appointment. At this point, Elliot's vision is age-appropriate and his optic nerve does not have any damage on it from the initial swelling of this brain. So once again baby boy has exceeded all expectation. After finding out that Elliot has hydrocephalus we never imagined he would be doing this well this quickly. We are thrilled and can't wait for his 4 month check up next week to update his pediatrician on all the good news. Byron and I couldn't have asked for a better anniversary present!