Written Monday Night, September 25th, 2006 after Abby’s third shunt was put in.

So let’s back up a bit. On Friday Abby had the MRI. What we learned from the MRI was that Abby had some fluid building up in the right front part of her brain. The question then was, "Why was it building up? Wasn’t the shunt supposed to drain this fluid out?" Good question and the answer is "yes." But this particular part of the brain was blocked. The passageways that usually allow the fluid to pass through were probably clogged. So the plan was to wait until Monday morning to determine for sure whether or not these passageways to that area were in fact clogged.

Over the weekend though, we noticed some other things. Abby was very lethargic and not eating very well and even vomiting. I’m not talking about "spitting up," I’m talking about some serious, " I feel like junk" kind of vomiting. And of course, Abby’s soft spot was getting more firm and her head even seemed a bit bigger. All these are signs of her shunt not working. The sick feeling comes from the increased pressure on her brain caused by all the accumulating fluid.
Monday morning rolled around and the first thing the neurosurgeon did was check her shunt and guess what? It was clogged too. Kelly was right all weekend. Abby was going into surgery. Our neurosurgeon had two things to consider in this surgery. One was to take out the old clogged shunt and put in a new one in and also to tap into that blocked off area where that other puddle of fluid was accumulating. He decided to actually move the shunt from the left side of her body to the right side. While this is better in the long run, it meant he had to cut Abby open to remove the old one, cut her open to put in the new one, cut her tummy again to bring the tube of the shunt down to her abdomen, and then he had to cut the top of her head to take care of that fluid build up.

The surgery took about 2 hours and everything went pretty well. Now comes the hard part. Abby is a fighter but she’s not one to just bounce back with no problems. She’ll probably be in the hospital for a few days. Please continue to pray for Abby’s recovery and pray for Kelly. It breaks my heart to watch her eyes well up when she sees our Abby in pain.

The Gaya’s.