What an Adventure of Sorts!

So we are back from the hospital and things went better than everyone planned.  We are pretty happy with the way that everything turned out.  You can't even really tell that the little dude had a pretty big surgery.  This is a picture of him less that 24 hours after his surgery, just him being his typical cute self.

Sterling had his vp shunt surgery at 9:15 am on March 24, 2009 and he was released from the hospital at 12 pm on March 25, 2009.  We had anticipated that he would be in there for at least 2-7 days.  The doctor told me it is pretty rare for someone so young to be released so early after this type of surgery.  The surgery took 1 hour and then he was in recovery for 2 hours until they found an open hospital bed.  He was pretty cute when they brought him into his hospital room.  He was holding this little red baby rattle that they had given him straight out and staring at it intently for a few minutes.  He wasn't even moving because he was so out of it from all the drugs that they have given him but he wouldn't let go of that rattle.  The neurosurgeon told us that they decided to put a magnetic valve in his head.  The valve is what controls the flow of fluid from his brain to his tummy.  By using a magnetic valve they are able to change the flow setting without performing another surgery.  They use these little magnetic tools (as shown below the valve picture) on the outside his head to program the flow of fluid.  There are 5 settings and right now he is on the lowest flow so that he does not get headaches from the sudden pressure change in his head.  Apparently, these magnetic valves are super super expensive and are rarely used, so Sterling is pretty lucky that they decided to use this type of valve on him.  This is what the valve in his head looks like.  
The valve is 4 cm long by 1.5 cm wide and 0.5 cm high, so you can clearly see the valve under his skin.  This is the incision from his first shunt surgery.  It is about 1 inch long and curved into a half circle.
Here you can kind of see the tube from the valve.  It goes from the back of his head, down the side of his neck and then through his chest into his tummy.  You can see the tube most of the way and feel it pretty well.
This is his tummy scar from his shunt surgery.  They make an incision here so that they can feed it from his brain into his tummy easily.  This incision is about 1 and 1/2 inches wide.
This is and MRI scan of people with and without Hydrocephalus.  The first picture is a brain with Hydrocephalus and the second is a picture of a normal brain.  As you can see, it starts compressing the brain pretty tightly into the skull.
So the little guy is a trooper and he obviously has someone looking out for him.  I just can't believe how he always pulls through surgeries as if nothing has even happened.  Minus some itching.  He can't stop itching his head incision.  Last night we heard him making some weird noises so we went into his bedroom.  There was blood on his pj's, in his ears, all over his face and bed.  He had managed to pull his bandage off and then then start scratching his stitches.  He then proceeded to rub his blood all over anything that he could get his little hands on.  

Thanks for all the prayers and help with the little guy.  We are super lucky that we have such a cute little boy and that he doesn't have it worse.  We have heard of many people in the SBHASA that have had way worse situations and health problems with their kids including more hospital visits and way more surgeries.  

-Alauna