July 6- Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester NY

So, when I got to the house, my niece had already packed us up and had the car seats ready to go in my friend Carolyn's car. There was no way I could drive, so she offered to drive me up and spent the night. I ran into the house, grabbed a couple other things, made a quick phone call- and we were off.  About halfway there, my phone rang from my mom. I heard "Grace is..." and then I lost reception. Ahh. That is the scariest feeling. I called her back on Carolyn's phone, and her doctor had met them on the roof and wheeled her straight to CT and X ray. His name is Anthony, and he is the resident that assisted with Gracie's last shunt surgery. I'm not sure if he takes such an interest in all of his patients, but he STAYED with her the entire time. When I finally got there, he told me that he didn't leave her at all, because if anything WAS wrong shuntwise, he was carting her down to the OR, and getting verbal consent from us. He was in the room with her when I walked in. Papers in hand...authorization for him to do a shunt tap. He shaved a very small portion of her hair, directly over the shunt, and stuck a needle right into the reservoir. This gave him a sample of Cerebral Spinal Fluid, which would then be tested for infections. While I wanted an answer, I PRAYED that it wasn't a shunt infection. Shunt infections require complete removal of the entire shunt system, and an external shunt is placed, for 10-14 days while the infection clears. He got the CSF and I went back into the room. He told me that his first thought was that this was not shunt related. She didn't have a high fever or other infection markers, and the shunt looked fine. This was reassuring, but left us really questioning. Everyone got ready to leave for the night, and I prepared a bed in the chair beside Grace. She slept through the night, what with the fact that she had enough sedative in her to keep ME asleep for a week!! I think I got about 30 minutes of sleep that night, which I am thankful for. I kept getting woken up by a VERY attentive nurse. Karen never even took a break that night, she watched Gracie all through the night, as I sat there and waited for results from the blood work and CSF tests. Waiting and wondering, what in the world was going on with our girl. Most of all, we were praying...and thanking God that He already knew.