We knew this day would come...

just did not think it would be so soon. On Monday I took Ethan to his GI appointment and it went great! The doc was impressed with how much weight he has gained. He is over 15 pounds which means he gained five pounds since he last saw him...which was only 20 days ago! His liver enzymes are back to normal now too(it was high due to a medication he was on before). So everything with that was good! Yesterday we had an appointment with his neurosurgeon for a followup...it was supposed to be an easy visit. So I decided taking Brayden with me would be fine...I was wrong. It was a long day! It turns out the shunt in his head that drains the fluid from his head to his tummy had stopped working!!! Ugh! He was not 100 percent sure at that time so he wanted Ethan to get a CT scan...lets just say an appointment that was supposed to be twenty min long turned into a whole day at the hospital getting tests done. After they confirmed that the shunt was in fact not working, he put Ethan down for surgery to fix the problem. That surgery happened today. We knew that he would need a revision, everybody with Shunts need revisions through out their life...was just hoping for it further down the road.

They started his surgery at 1 pm and it ended at 6...The longest 5 hours of our lives! They shunt stopped working where it was draining...it was in the beginning stages of another pseudo cyst. We had no idea! Thank god for that followup visit. He was acting fine and he was healthy! Before his surgery he was laughing and playing with his toys and doing all the things that he loves doing. The surgery went fine and it took so long because our surgeon is a perfectionist...they were no difficulties. They replaced the shunt and moved the end of the shunt to the heart. He now has a VA shunt. It is going to be more revisions and a little more complicated if he gets an infection but he is a strong baby...he has that on his side for sure.

Ethan is resting comfortably and they are keeping him overnight for observations. It was good that we caught the malfunction early before he started getting sick over it. Other than the malfunction he has been doing great and all the doctors are so impressed with him. We were in the cafeteria today after the surgery and we ran into one of the doctors that was in the OR today and he told my mom that he has dealt with so many preemies and he has never met an ex 28weeker who is doing so well and is so strong. He stressed how revisions with shunts are common...it is the piece of plastic a.k.a the shunt that is the problem...usually not the person. Yes, he spent a lot of time in the hospital before because of that pseudo cyst from his shunt but at the end of the day he is a lot luckier than other ex 28weekers. He has fought a tough fight and he has beat a lot of odds. I am so proud of him.

I have had a long 48 hours with little to no sleep. So I hope this all makes sense. We are praying that he does well tonight with pain and he doesn't get any fevers. I will write an update in a couple days. I can't wait to get my little monkey home.

Here is a picture of the lil man after his surgery...he is super sleepy cause they gave him some stuff for pain. But he is perfect...I love him so much!