Here I thought I'd posted an update on the status of our appointments. Turns out the MRI shows that the cysts around Ethan's brainstem have remained stable since his surgery in April 2011. Which is mostly good news. The negative to this is that the neurosurgeon, as always, wonders if Ethan would do better to have them dealt with (shrunk somehow) but to do so can, of course, cause other issues. So we will continue to monitor and not invite any issues.
As for the CT scan, it wasn't as obvious in showing issues. We saw the surgeon the following Wednesday and he said he wasn't convinced that Ethan's screws were backing out. But after feeling Ethan's back, he could better understand our concern and agreed that the screws were backing out. Especially when we explained that the change had occurred between the Thursday of his scan and the following weekend before we saw the doc. The plan was for Ethan to go back into the O.R. for a rod revision.
Ethan 1 day post-surgery - still sedated and intubated.
Surgery took place on Wednesday, September 18 in the morning. Due to troubles securing his airway, it took a long time to get him ready for surgery and the surgery took longer than expected. When the surgeon came out he explained that Ethan's rods are now hybrids. The lower half are still the Shilla technique which means they should grow with him as he grows. The upper half however, are now traditional growing rods, which means the surgeon will have to go in every 4-6 months to manually grow that portion. He felt that Ethan's bones were not strong enough to keep the screws in them so he attached the rod tops with clamps that go around the bone (which is stronger than the centre of his bone). To help keep the rods in place, the surgeon did a bone graph to strengthen the area. Here's hoping that everything progresses well and that he doesn't require another rod revision.
Similar to a shunt, if a rod is going to fail (back out) it typically happens closer to the initial surgery. This was the case for Ethan. My understanding is that if there are rod issues after the 6-12 month healing period then it can be due to a broken rod, injury to the spine or loosening of screws from growth. All spinal rods have the above risks. If we had proceeded with the VEPTR technique, then you can also end up with broken ribs as a potential issue because they attach to the ribs instead of the spine.
Before surgery, Ethan started to display symptoms of a cold...and it seems that he did in fact catch the cold that Clayton and I both have. Despite this, they were able to extubate him on Saturday. Because he was no longer on a breathing tube, he was able to leave critical care and head up to the floor for continued recovery.
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