We took Zoey to her 1 month follow up to the neurosurgeon on Monday (who by the way, is an amazing doctor!) and got great news about her head. About a month ago Zoey had a CT scan of her head and we went to the neurosurgeon and they found extra spinal cranial fluid around her frontal lobe and in the spaces of her left and right ventricles. They said this usually resolves by 2 yrs. but that they wanted to monitor her for the development hydrocephalus (water on the brain- really bad- would result in shunting) or irregular growth of the cranial bones together (also bad- would result in having surgery to break the bones and reposition them once they grew together). Anyway, this week the neurosurgeon measured her head again and her head size percentile stabilized and the Dr. even said that she immediately noticed Zoey’s head looked noticeably more normalized (she had a slight bulge on right forehead consistent with extra fluid behind there). The Dr. believes that the fluid is stabilizing very fast on its own and thinks that there is little risk of any other issues as a result of the extra fluid. She was very impressed at how fast things were improving and how good Zoey looked. We go back in 6 months to have another check up. We couldn’t be happier! We were right on the cusp of things going either way depending on how fast/much her head circumference changed. Thankfully her development seemed right on target so we kind of thought things were improving.

One interesting thing the Dr. said was that the extra fluid might have caused some differences in what we thought was personality early on. If you know Zoey well, when she was little she was at times very difficult and fussy. She became irritated very fast and took a long time to calm down. There were many episodes where she would just cry and was hard to console and often times didn’t even want to be held or fed. This was pretty hard for Jason and I, but we chalked it up to her just being sensitive and maybe a little more active and not able to shut out stimuli (which is sometimes common in preemies too). Recently, we’ve noticed a huge calming in Zoey. She is quieter, happier and generally more laid back- not as fast to become fussy. The Dr. said that although this could be attributed to a lot of things while they are young (reflux, overstimulation, etc.), it might have been due to the pressure from the extra fluid in her head. I really wonder about that. Anyone else have experience with that or know about that? Its just fascinating.

So, we are just hanging in there until September and then, maybe if her head measures ok and no issues pop up in the meantime, we can put it all behind us and never worry about her head again… besides getting perfect grades in Science of course!

Thanks for all your well wishes though. Its like when I left the hospital without the twins (probably the most difficult thing in my life)- these difficult situations seem hard from the outside, but when you’re in it, you just do what you need to do and with others to lean on it just passes. It gives you healthy perspective when you need it the most. This particular thing with Zoey seems to be turning out just fine so far thank goodness. Its amazing at these tough times how the support from everyone makes things so much easier- just simply talking about it with others or messages from friends wishing us luck. Thanks a ton!