McKenzie's Brain Exploration

McKenzie's cyst fenestration took place this morning way too early. We had to be at the hospital at 5:30, had meetings with anesthesia, nursing, etc, and finally got into surgery about 7:30. The procedure took about 45 minutes. We met with the doctor right after. He told us that they had located the cyst and made a hole in one end of it. The fluid in the cyst was basically stagnant cerebrospinal fluid that was a bright canary yellow instead of the normal crystal clear. The doctor was able to draw a lot of that fluid off through the catheter. He said that when they looked at the cyst again via ultrasound there was a dramatic difference in size.

Dr. Oakes decided not to go back in and poke a hole in the other side of the cyst. Doing so would have required using a larger endoscope which could have cause additional damage to the brain tissue itself. The cyst will continue to drain into the ventricle of the brain where the fluid will be reabsorbed by the body.

The brain itself seemed to react fairly well. The brain tissue that had been pushed aside by the cyst started to fill in the cyst area right after the doctor punched the hole in it. That's a really good sign that the brain should go back to its' normal location without any issues.

We're in a room now where we'll stay overnight for observation. Tomorrow morning, we've got some additional blood work to check for infection as well as a CT scan to see what the cyst did overnight. We'll schedule a follow-up next week hopefully with our pediatrician to get the incision site checked for problems. We'll also schedule another CT scan in about 2 months and again at 1 year to check the cyst. If there is no additional growth, we'll pretty much be done.

We'll be in Birmingham for a few more days just to make sure that there aren't any problems. We appreciate all the support from friends and family over the last few weeks. It's certainly made the trip easier. We'll post pictures once we get home since I forgot the cable for the camera. Til then...