[Magdalen] Shunt Surgery

[Judy Fleener]

Prayers for both of you are being offered at our house.
Judy

On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 4:07 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Prayers and good wishes, indeed, as you both deal with the stresses and
> strains of this situation, and more prayers for Lisa's quick and complete
> recovery from the procedure.  And a hearty bravo to you for your continuing
> abstinence.
>
> Marion, a pilgrim
>
>
>
> On 12/4/2017 9:01 AM, Christopher Hart wrote:
>
>> Dear Pub Friends,
>>
>> My wife, Lisa, was born with hydrocephalus and has had since childhood a
>> shunt to relieve the excess fluid in her brain. Like many medical devices
>> shunts can and do wear out and time also finds the medical community
>> making
>> improvements in treatment. About three weeks ago her neurosurgeon placed a
>> new type of programmable valve into her existing shunt to enable better
>> control of her fluid which was draining too much. This sort of valve did
>> not exist when she had her last shunt implanted. The valve was placed into
>> her abdomen near a rib to avoid surgery at or near her head.
>> Unfortunately,
>> it became disconnected from the tubing and she was leaking cerebro-spinal
>> fluid through the incision at an alarming rate. I took her to the
>> emergency
>> room yesterday when I suspected what was happening and the neurosurgeon
>> who
>> examined her (her surgeon's associate) confirmed my layman's suspicion.
>>
>> ​The upshot of this is that she now has her shunt connected to an external
>> ventricular device to control and monitor the flow and will be ​having a
>> whole new shunt installed tomorrow if all goes as planned. This is pretty
>> major surgery, but she has a very good surgeon so we have high hopes for
>> the outcome. If all is well she may come home as soon as Wednesday, but
>> will no doubt have a significant period of recovery to follow. Your
>> prayers
>> and good wishes are, of course, welcome and desired, both for her and for
>> me as I deal with everything. After eleven hours in or around the ER and
>> then ICU (following transfer from one hospital to another) I'm happy to
>> say
>> that I did not reach for a drink which certainly would have been my
>> default
>> action in the past.
>>
>
>


-- 
Judy Fleener, ObJN,SSH
Western Michigan