On Friday last week (Miriam's birthday) we had the first visit from our Health Visitor since Naomi's discharge from hospital. As well as the standard weighing and measuring, the Health Visitor also checked Naomi's head circumference - something that followers of this blog will know we have to pay close attention to. Although not too worried about Naomi's general health, the head measurement had increased since discharge from hospital so she said she would ring the neonatal unit and check it with them.
So, at 4pm we got a call asking us to come back into hospital. We all went in together since we wanted to be quick and try not to get stuck waiting over the weekend to be seen. We went back to the neonatal unit we had left only three days before and checked in. Having sat the children down in front of the TV in the families room, Naomi was checked again with various measurements and ultrasound scans before the paediatric consultant decided that they would, after all, need to do a further operation to put a shunt in. Not what we had hoped and only just after we had come out which was very disappointing but understandable.
I took the children back to Whitchurch and arrived just before my sister and brother-in-law, Beth and Olly, who were coming to stay for the weekend. Reuben and Miriam greeted them as though they had been together all day and Beth put them to bed using the very effective lines "but Nana tells me..." if they misbehaved. On Saturday morning we all started getting ready for a small celebration for Miriam's birthday which we thought should go ahead even though Jo and Naomi wouldn't be there.
Meanwhile, in Southampton, Naomi had gone through the miserable process (for both her and Jo) of not feeding for several hours in advance of the general anaesthetic and operation. The same surgeon who did Naomi's original operation spoke to Jo saying that seemingly this operation (the ventriculostomy) doesn't work on newborns and he would put in a shunt. Naomi was to have an MRI scan before the operation. Then, surprisingly, the surgeon called Jo between the MRI and the operation to say that the scan had shown the first operation seemed to be working just fine and that there was no need for a second operation. As soon as Naomi recovered from the anaesthetic she was free to go home. Extricating oneself from hospital can be a little slow but we managed to get released and then headed home in time for the second half of Miriam's birthday celebration which Beth and Olly had been hosting whilst I went to get Jo and Naomi.
Miriam had a lovely birthday party with all the things she had been getting excited about for the past couple of weeks including friends to play with, presents, chocolate cake, and especially candles. I was so pleased to have gone ahead with it and even more pleased to have made it back to enjoy it with her.
And so life returned to normal with Jo's parents visiting again on Monday and Tuesday, or so we thought. On Wednesday a new Health Visitor came round and again the measurements of Naomi's head circumference were going up. This time, we agreed that we would call the neurosurgical nurse (rather than the neonatal unit) and she suggested that rather than rush in, we keep an eye on Naomi and come in for a check up on Friday to confirm all was well before the weekend. So we carried on but it became clearer to us that Naomi's head was growing again.
This morning (Friday) we arranged for Reuben and Miriam to spend the morning with the Reis family - which is like a second home to them - whilst we went down to Southampton for the check up. Just to be on the safe side, Jo packed an overnight bag hoping, of course, that it wouldn't be necessary. We walked into the children's neurological ward at 10:00am and the nurse we had been in touch with took one look at Naomi and it was pretty clear another operation was on the cards. Naomi's surgeon was there too and he asked when Naomi had last fed. As it happened she hadn't fed for several hours so the surgeon said he would try and find a theatre and do the operation to put in a shunt straight away. I then got a call from the High Commission in Cameroon and sorted out - satisfactorily for me - the rest of the time I would spend in Cameroon and then Naomi headed off to the anaesthetist. By 11:30 Naomi was in theatre being operated on and by 2:00pm she was out and back in Jo's arms.
Whist Naomi was being operated on, I managed to get a cancellation slot with the on-site Births Registrar to register Naomi's birth. We discussed the relative merits of the electronic process she uses for registering births and the long-hand process I have to use when registering births as Consul in Yaounde, until her next customer arrived.
Having established that Naomi and Jo were settled for the rest of the day I headed back to prise Reuben and Miriam away from the Reis's and get home in time for my brother Jon & family's arrival for the weekend. They had brought dinner with them so we were well looked after and Reuben and Miriam played for a while with their cousins - unsurprisingly they dropped straight into bed this evening.
We're hoping that Jo and Naomi will be back home on Saturday and I am certainly hoping they will be back before Monday when Reuben and Miriam start at school and pre-school respectively.
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