Mr. I is Jack Henry’s new stuffed animal.  Dirty Harry and I bought it for him from the the Vanderbilt’s Children’s Hospital gift shop last Thursday when Jack Henry was having an MRI.  Isn’t that a great name for a skeleton bear?  When it is actually commemorating the day you had an MRI?

Yes, the baby had an MRI.  Just for fun.

Not really.

You see, you may remember almost a year ago, when Jack Henry was born, he was in the NICU for a week.  He was small, only a little over five pounds, because he was a tad early and because my blood pressure had spiked at the end of my pregnancy, causing my placenta to basically quit feeding him.  He had some breathing issues and some blood sugar issues.  Then, while he was in there, they found a heart murmur.  They also thought his chest cavity and head were large.  So they ran tests.  Lots and lots of tests.  And Jack Henry passed them all with flying colors.  The Cap’n continued to see a cardiologist for a couple of months, but the murmur eventually went away, and we were given a clean bill of health.

On his regular visits to his pediatrician, you know they do all those measurements, and his head kept coming up larger than normal and a little out of proportion with the rest of his body.  I was completely non-worried about this because Dirty Harry has a big noggin too.  His head as an infant was always off the charts.  Plus Jack Henry is developing normally, aside from being slightly behind in gross motor skills.  But his doctor always was a little uncomfortable with the measurements.

Finally, at his nine month appointment, she told me that he needed to see a radiologist.  The measurements kept creeping up, and she wanted to have it checked out and rule out some things.

“What things?” I asked.

Basically there were two main things that could cause his head to be larger than average:  a mass and fluid.  She assured me she didn’t think it was a mass at all because a mass large enough to cause abnormal head growth usually affects development as well.  Fluid would mean he was hydro cephalic.  She didn’t say much about that, so I went home and researched on my own, and he had no other symptoms.

So, all in all, I felt they were just going to have a little look-see inside my baby’s brain.  His slightly larger-than-normal brain.

Well, the results were exactly what I thought.  Jack Henry is normal.  His head size is normal for him, and there are no problems.  Except….

His lateral ventricles are slightly larger than normal, which is basically about as significant as having a slightly larger than normal big toe.  *Sigh*  I knew they’d find something else though.  Basically these ventricles are where fluid couldleak into the brain area.  They could be just the size that’s normal for him, or they could be under a bit of pressure, which can’t be measured.  So now our pediatrician wants us to go see a neurosurgeon.  It’s the textbook thing to say.  I predict that he ‘s going to look at the kid’s ventricles and tell us to come back if X, Y or Z begins to happen,  and then he will leave work and go buy a Harley Davidson with what he just made from our insurance.

I didn’t feel like talking about all this before because…well…I don’t know….I guess it sort of makes it more real, the more people you tell.  One has to keep explaining things over and over and over again, and eventually, even if the Lord has given you a sense of peace, it starts to sound scary.  Now, however, I just want to ask you to pray.

Could you pray for that sweet little face, that we could once and for all get all of this resolved?  All of this makes you a little weary when you feel in your heart of hearts that your child is healthy.  I suppose it gets even more weary when your child is not healthy.  Perspective, I guess….

And while you’re at it, he’s having minor surgery later this month to repair a hernia.  You can pray for that too if you’d like.

Thanks.