Tragic News!

When Brayden was still in the NICU at the hospital (about 3-4 weeks after birth), I got a phone call from the neonatologist (neonatal doctor or preemie doctor) while I was getting ready to leave for Savannah to see Brayden. He told me that the nurse had told him that his head measurements have been off slightly. I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that his head circumference has been growing way too quickly. He said that he was going to have him taken down to get an ultrasound of his brain to see what the problem was.

I hurried as fast as I could to get to Savannah (which is an hour away from where I live) because I was scared that I was going to end up losing my baby. When I got to the NICU, I asked the nurse if they had the results to his ultrasound. They checked, and they told me that there was nothing yet. I was going to lose my mind, if I had to wait any longer to hear the results to the test.

The nurse came into his room, and she told me that the neurosurgeon was going to come talk to me about the results. Of course, I would think the worse. Surgeon meaning surgery, I thought Brayden was going to have to have surgery to fix whatever problem he had. My mind was racing.

The doctor finally came in. He introduced himself, and he told me that he looked at the ultrasound. He said that Brayden has an intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), and that they were going to perform an MRI of his brain at the end of the week to see if it improves. They said that his was pretty bad, and they could not tell what might have caused it. He said that if it did not improve, then he might have to put a shunt in him to empty the fluid in the brain. That way it does not back up too much and swell the brain or head.

The end of the week came, and he was sent to have the MRI. I was not able to go with him, and I was just crying the entire time he was gone. I was thinking that something was going to go wrong, and they were going to come back to tell me that he had a tumor or something that was going to kill him.

The doctor came in to tell me the results, and he said that it looked like it has gotten smaller. I was so happy that he did not have to have surgery, and that he did not have anything worse.

He still has the problem, but I hope that it will completely go away soon.