#shuntlife

March 1st has become an anniversary in our household that will be celebrated for years to come. This marked the 1 year of Shea's brain surgery and placemet of his vp shunt for hydrocephalus. Although still hard to even write the words brain surgery when referring to our son, this March 1st came in celebration, joy, and empowerment. Our little dude made it without any complications or shunt failures for his first year after all we heard about after placement of the shunt was that odds are high his first failure would occur within a years time. You better believe we celebrated this 1 year milestone with a great sense of pride. We are making this #shuntlife work.

A lot has occurred since we last posted. For example as we write this, Shea is back in his second surgery (and 3rd time of anesthesia) of his short 14 month life to correct strabismus associated with his right eye. This is routine surgery however no surgery feels routine, especially when your child is 14 months. It is a strange feeling though as we sit in the waiting room; the youngest couple in the room; the couple who has lived this before. We have become veterans in a world we wish we knew nothing about.

Surgery should last about an hour and a half. Recovery we have been told is pretty routine as he should take about 24 hours to get through simply the reprocussions of surgery. Outside of the first 24 hours he will not be allowed to enter the pool or ocean for 3 weeks... Haha, a daunting task for the Berger family. We got this!

Finally I want to take a moment and give some love to my incredible wife for not only being there for Shea and dad but she has also championed one of the toughest hurdles in this process: health insurance. Shea now has 7 specialists (neurosurgeon, GI, allergist, geneticist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, audiologist) on top of his primary care physician that are all seen pretty much on a quarterly basis (not to mention the optician and infant stimulation that are seen weekly). Take out the authorizations required to get into each specialist, coordination of time and scheduling is a full time job (yet she has one of those, too).  Shea dude receives great care and that does not happen by chance. Many people (you know who you are) have been very kind with their time and love in helping us through this. However none of this comes together without Erin's relentless pursuit of wanting what is best for Shea. Thank you to my bride.

As always thank you for your love and prayers.

The Berger Family