Home again

Once again, we've had a trying week though probably not as traumatic as it must have been for a very small boy. However, Thomas seems to have a remarkable ability to recover as yet again he has recovered, this time from surgery, in record time and by yesterday was deemed fit enough to go home. Now he's home, he already seems more settled and we can see his head reducing in size as the fluid begins to drain.

As you can imagine, it all came as a bit of a shock to us. Every week, a Neo-natal nurse visits Thomas as home and there had been no indication of any problems until she measured his head last Friday. Normally, a baby's head should grow at 1cm a week but Thomas' head had grown 5.6cms in two weeks. Within a couple of hours of Jennifer's visit, Thomas' consultant at St Peters (Tosin Otunla) called to ask us to take him to A&E for further examination. Thomas had a CT scan later that night and the consultant paediatrician on duty sent the pictures to St Georges Hospital in London, as they have a special paediatric neurological department. As you the know, the rest is history.

As a result of Thomas' surgery, he has a small lump on the side of his head which comprises of a pressure valve and reservoir installed just under the skin . He has another small cut on this tummy where they pulled the tubing down into his stomach so that the liquid which drains away from the head can be absorbed back into the body. As long as there are no complications as a result of the operation such as infection or the shunt blocking, Thomas will have the shunt for the rest of his life. The surgeon told us that he installs approx 200 shunts a year into children as a result of brain haemorrhages, illnesses such as meningitis and other problems so it's not as uncommon as you'd think. He will be able to lead a pretty normal life which is good, though we will always have to be on the look out for potential blockages which will require immediate surgery.

Whilst staying at St Georges, we saw lots of small children with much more serious problems such as cancer, leukemia and disability so we have to be thankful that Thomas is back home with us so quickly and hopefully permanently this time.

We have to take Thomas back to St Georges in six weeks time for another scan and we are hoping that they might be able to tell us more about the damage that the brain suffered as a result of the original bleed when he was a day old. We will obviously update you then but in the meantime, here is a picture of Thomas taken a couple of days after the operation.