Peanut's Diagnosis

I will no longer say, "when things calm down." I have come to accept that this busy life is the way it's going to be. Especially now that we are adding another specialist to our line up.

Peanut does have hydrocephalus, but not the traditional kind with enlarged ventricles that needs an immediate shunt. By definition, hydrocephalus is too much fluid around the brain and that's what Peanut has. However, in Peanut's case he also just has more space around his brain to accommodate fluid. There is a cavity at the top of the head (can't remember it's name) and the normal size for the cavity is 1 to 2 millimeters. Peanut's cavity is a centimeter and a half!!! His head is just abnormally large and we don't know why as of right now.

The hope is that as the space naturally narrows from things like the closing of the soft spot that his brain will automatically adjust the amount of fluid for the new size of space.

We have explained away many of Peanut's issues but if you put them together at a global level, they could have been signs of too much pressure from early on. This would include his vomiting that we have said is his 'digestive issues' and his irritability which we blamed on his tummy bothering him. There are others, I just can't think of them at the moment. It's interesting that all of his "issues" went away as though someone had flipped a switch. He became calm, sleeping through the night and started spitting up less all in a 24 hour period of time. Is it possible that his head just finally got big enough to accommodate the fluid?

I need to go back and look but I do believe his head started growing at a much faster pace around 4 months old and it hasn't stopped. His head circumference is well above the 100th percentile without even correcting for age.

We see the neurosurgeon again at the end of January and they will be following Peanut very closely until he either outgrows this or proves he needs a shunt. The doctor believes he is very likely to outgrow it and that makes us VERY happy, obviously.

As of right now there are no signs that he needs relief of pressure in the brain therefore no shunt necessary. We've been given the list and told what to do if we see them and obviously we're hoping it never comes to that.

I asked the doctor if this means Peanut is being set up for the potential of many MRIs and or CT Scans. The short answer is yes. The long answer is that he at least has this MRI to show him the anatomy of the brain and hopefully we'll be able to put off the MRIs longer. We don't like the MRI because he has to be put under general anesthesia to do it. Of course, then there is the CT Scan which is huge amounts of radiation.

On another note: I'm ticked off that I think I caught something from one of those runts in the waiting room! LOL!