Wide Pedicles and Night Owls

Just when Maria seems to be feeling better and things seem to be improving, I get a letter from the neurosurgeon summarizing our visit on July 5!!!! 7 months later, and I thought I was a procrastinator.... It says things like "she was having some episodes of questionable decline in mental status" -- which turned out to be teething... "continues to be followed by the neurologist for her neurological status and questionable seizures" -- she had 1 confirmed seizure when she was 7 days old... Regarding her head, "the relative frontal narrowing is certainly stable" -- we didn't realize she had relative frontal narrowing. Then it gets real good "there was a suggestion on the shunt series (x-rays) that she may have some posterior elemental dysraphism ... the neuro-radiologist and I feel as though her pedicles are a bit widened ... she needs a lumbar MRI to ensure she doesn't have any evidence of cord tethering". What the hell does that all mean? I'm trying to get the lumbar MRI scheduled with the brain MRI and BAER, now scheduled for March 3. I wish this stuff didn't flip me out...

And the night owl stuff, you ask? Maria has decided that she likes staying up past midnight. She likes to yell while staying up. A typical mother with a typical child would probably leave her be. I leave her for a while, but when she scrunches up her face, I wonder is it her shunt? Is it something serious? Is the antibiotic she's on for her bout of pneumonia messing up her stomach? Or is she just trying to get our attention? It's 9:30pm, she's been yelling for almost 30 minutes. If she repeats last night, we have 3 more hours to go... Both her parents like to stay up late, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Kalinichta! (good night in Greek)