Delaying Surgery.

I know that delaying surgery sounds crazy to most parents of children with Hydrocephalus. It is a rare occurrence where a child with a shunt that needs surgery can be delayed. But we honestly feel this is the best avenue for Katana. Katana was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation in 2008, this simply means that Katana's skull is not shaped correctly to accommodate her brain, it can result in some of the things we have been seeing with Katana the last two years. Even though her Neurosurgeon doesn't believe her Chiari is 100% of the problem he also wants to be thorough and make sure her Chiari is checked and if needed operated on when the valve replacement is done. I almost had a heart attack when HE called me to ask me if we were ok with this plan of care. I have been in the medical field long enough to know that even the best doctors don't have time to personally make sure that a plan of care is OK with every patient or parent. Yet her new Neurosurgeon is determined to make sure that Chris and I are involved in every step of her care and any decisions he makes in Katana's case, to the extent that he will take time out of his busy schedule to call us himself if he feels the need to change a plan of care after we have spoke with him. He asked us to give him 30 days to run these test so he could decided what he felt was best for Katana, after two years of an uphill battle to just get someone to listen 30 days doesn't seem all that long to wait for some one to listen to us and have a passion to do it right the first time. So Katana has an MRI on Jan 3rd and then we see her neurosurgeon on Jan 4th. We will be scheduling surgery soon after that and the best part of it, we will be able to do it with confidence that we are doing the right thing 100%.