Update On My Friend's Baby

I talked to Jackie on Thursday, after they had the second opinion. The baby does have a cerebellum, it's just pretty small due to the pressure of the excess fluid. He definitely has Dandy Walker Syndrome. There is a lot of water in the entire 3rd ventricle of the brain. There is also some pressure or damage on the thalamus and something else that I didn't catch. She was on a cell phone and breaking up a little, so I missed some of it. I didn't want to ask her to repeat it. They did an amniocentesis that day and are waiting for the results from that. They will see a geneticist next week sometime and then possibly a pediatric neurosurgeon after that. It may be possible to put a shunt into the baby's brain in utero and alleviate some of the pressure. If not in utero, they may operate shortly after birth. She's at Johns Hopkins, so she is receiving the best possible care.

The good news is that baby's brains are very elastic and it has a chance of "bouncing back" to normal, or close to it. They have also seen baby's brains make different connections (as opposed to the connections that normal, healthy brains have) to compensate for disabilities, which an adult brain would not be unable to do. The best part is that all hope is not lost. There's a chance that the baby may survive and a chance that he may even have a close to normal life. But they are far from out of the woods yet. It will depend a lot on what the geneticist says next week. Dandy Walker syndrome can be very mild or very, very severe, and they just don't know quite yet what they are up against. None of the other organs or his extremities were effected, which is good. But there are multiple anomalies in the brain, which is bad. At least at this point, they aren't being urged to terminate the pregnancy. There is some hope, which she is clinging to right now. I will post more updates as I hear. I thank everyone for their continued prayers.