Inspirational

As promised a few weeks ago, I thought I'd share a few pictures of his CT scans of last year versus today. Its pretty remarkable, considering where we started.

Let me explain what you're looking at. In these scans, the white is normal brain tissue, the black represents missing brain matter, where spinal fluid is in its place. If you looked at a CT of a healthy brain, it would be appear entirely white, with the exception of four small c-shaped ventricles showing up black. There is no way to know from these pictures whether the black/fluid area was there because the bleed destroyed this tissue (and was replaced with spinal fluid), or if the ventricles are built up from his inability to drain properly causing the brain tissue to compress.

One other note...the pictures are from the angle as if you are standing at his feet and looking up at his nose. So, his right front with the bulk of the damage actually appears on these scans on the top-left of the picture. It seems backwards from what you expect to see.

JUNE 2007

The first picture is from June 2007 while in the NICU, a few days before the initial shunt was placed. This is similar to the first picture we looked at with the neurologist when learning of the extent of the damage (the meeting I reference often). It appears that there is no brain tissue other that the thin outer circle. 90% of the brain was perceived as missing at this time. This is the day we were asked to consider signing a DNR.

MARCH 2008

March 2008 - when the major revision to splice the shunt was done. Just to confuse you more, this picture is opposite of the others with black & white because it is an MRI instead of a CT. The black is healthy tissue, the white is fluid. You can see that the overall picture has improved and some healthy tissue has bounced back, but the back left ventricle (right on the picture above) is still very large. This is the part that was pushing on the brain stem causing him to have central apnea. This is also the pressure that damaged the third nerve that controls eye movement. In the side view, you can see these pockets of fluid.

DECEMBER 2008

This is one month ago... you can see all of the healthy tissue that has returned. There is still the damaged area on the right that will never return, but so much has improved overall. This is why the neurologist is floored when she sees Lucas come into her office interacting with her, smiling, and with all the receptive language. The CT we had a few weeks ago ("his best ever"), has improved even more from this picture, showing more brain expansion. The solid white circle you see on the right is the catheter from the shunt placed in the ventricle.

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I hope you find this as inspirational as we do. Just goes to show you that you just never know. We are so proud of him!