Intracranial pressure monitoring

Since a week has passed, I don't feel up to really going into it much now, but Jack was in hospital from Thursday - Sunday for pressure monitoring as a last ditch attempt to see if his extreme behaviour has a medical basis. It's funny as the pictures I post of him are always happy and smiling, but believe me, I have an equal number of unposted pictures of crying and shouting and very angry.

He does have tremendous resolve though. He was actually perfectly behaved in hospital, as I thought he would be. He got to lie in bed and watch tv and basically do what he wanted, so why would he be upset ;-)

The process itself was a bit of a debacle, it was supposed to be for 24 hour monitoring, which turned into almost 60 hours and was just a typical NHS frustrating experience.

Anyway. Usually Jack is really upset after a GA, but this time he was laughing and smiling in recovery. He was a real joy the entire stay, he is amazing, he didn't even need pain relief. The probe had me freaked out though, I thought it would be at the back of his head and wasn't prepared for where it was. Especially as he thought nothing of just banging his head against the cot sides, or flinging his head into the pillow, I cringed every single time.

Pre-op


Post op. Sucking his tongue, which he does when very tired.


Oblivious to his "antenna" as a young boy in the other bed called it, lol.


A portion of his trace. "Normal" pressure levels are 15. He has a number of readings above this, but I suspect they aren't consistent enough to be a problem. Who knows when we'll have an official result from his consultant.