Mira goes to ER for a Shunt Revision

By goobermaster

Created Jan 23 2008 - 1:10pm

23 Jan 08

By goobermaster | Tags: Mira spina bifida surgery

Keep Mira in your thoughts today. Instead of getting ready for her birthday this Friday, she’s in the hospital having surgery to revise her shunts again. Poor little angel.

In case you’re not in the know — Mira has Spina Bifida. You’d never know there’s anything going on with her, but she does have two “drains” or shunts in her skull to drain the excess fliud from her brain ventricles down into her stomach cavity. When one of these shunts fail, the pressure builds and makes Mira display unconventional behavior and have severe headaches. Jen had to take her into the ER Tuesday night and she’s now scheduled for surgery this afternoon.

It is a pretty straight forward procedure, but with any surgery (especially in her head), there are inherent risks. And it’s certainly no way to spend your birthday. Not only that, but it’s only been a year since her last revision and her beautiful hair has finally grown back just to be shaved off again. :(

Well - I’m pulling for you, Mira. She’s a trooper, but the hospital’s no fun when you’re about to turn six.

January 24, 2008 - 10:48am

goobermaster says:

Update from Jen:

Just a quick note to let you know that surgery went through as planned for today. Mira came out of surgery around 6pm. Her Neurosurgeon, Dr. Nagib, came out to show us the actual tubes that go into Mira’s brain. Both tubes have a bunch of little holes along the side of it to drain the cerebral spinal fluid. Almost every little hole was plugged. Yesterday, there was some question by the doctors if she still needed the surgery. They thought that her increase in shunt size could be from an infection elsewhere in her body so I am glad they went ahead with the surgery— it was the right thing to do.