Saturday

Well, I felt better yesterday morning, but not as good as the day progressed.  I would say that it wasn't as intense as it has been this week but not so great last night or today.  It is more evident to others as well as I seem to have developed "the look" of a headache.

We have some decisions to make.  The local ns would like to do a spinal tap and make a decision from there.  The negative is that I have had many spinal taps and I don't think that it is going to provide an answer.  There is also some risk to continue doing repeated spinal taps.  The positive is that it is local so I may be able to get something done here if the ns here felt that it is warranted.

The second choice would be to fly to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  The doctors there have discussed my case and they would like to do a shunt patency test to determine what is going on.  This test is not as invasive.  The doctor injects a dye into the tube right before the shunt pump in my head and then they follow the speed that the dye passes through the shunt and into my abdomen.  It sounds like that test is not available here since the nurse told me that she had never heard of this.  Of course the negative is the distance and trying to figure out how to do the traveling and take care of all the kids and their directions.  So we are praying over this now!