Preparing for hospital

Lucky penguin; Check. Monkey; Check. Kindle; Check

All essential items packed in readiness for another trip to hospital for Josh. We're booked in for a scan and to find out the issue with his shunt. Quite daunting but can't come soon enough to be honest as we're eager to find out what's wrong.  

After an afternoon puréeing a variety of orange coloured veggies yesterday, today I dusted down the high chair and anti-bac'd it within an inch of its life.  Set it up so Josh could watch his big sis tuck into her tea.  He was fascinated and munched his fists as she teased him by waving pasta twirls at him chanting "you're too little for pasta".

Not long now little man!  

Wish us luck tomorrow if they do need to operate and will send updates.

He rolled!

And he looks rather bewildered by it his first successful attempt!  But that didn't stop him practicing his new skill many times, not for the video camera obviously but every time I left the room and came back I'd see him flipped over onto his tummy!

After an anxious start to the week my little boy has made me so proud achieving this little milestone!  He is mightily pleased with himself too!!!

Go Josh!

Hanging out with Monkey.

Here's Josh out and about with his favourite companion Monkey!

Beach life

Today was a beach day. We're lucky enough to live by the sea and amazingly after 10 years living here went to a beach today that we've not been to before!

Josh having a kick about on the sand. We actually found it rather stressful with a baby trying to dodge the sun & the wind. But we find most things quite stressful at the moment.  Josh is pretty grizzly at times which makes me anxious.  Actually feeling quite eager to get back to hospital to get his shunt sorted out.

We spent the end of the day messing about in the garden. We're doing sitting up practice with Josh.  With weaning coming up in a few weeks I'm hoping it won't be long before he's sitting unaided.  

Playing in the playhouse with his big sis.  Can't wait to get her involved in weaning!

Fruit picking

So today we picked fruit.  Most of which got munched en route but some of which will hopefully make it into a crumble.

Josh loved his day out too!

"It's about the size of a small egg..."

This was how I described the squidgy lump on the back of Josh's head during a call to the neuro ward last week.  So the shunt that was fitted a couple of weeks ago is working but the fluid is collecting around the shunt site so it is only partially working.  Which means we are booked in to go back in next week for a scan and a possible further operation.

Egg head

Josh was good as gold on his visit to the ward to be checked over.  He had a little snooze waiting for the consultant to come up.  I love his froggy legs!

Frogs legs

The Story So Far...

Our beautiful baby boy Joshua was diagnosed with hydrocephalus at 4.5 months old. He had a haematoma following a traumatic birth which was treated with a sub-dural shunt.  We hoped that this was to be a temporary measure however a couple of weeks before they were due to remove the shunt his head circumference had increased, his fontanelle was full and a CT scan showed that the shunt had actually blocked.  His ventricles were enlarged in line with progressive hydrocephalus.  He now has a VP shunt.

This blog is to give an update a day of Josh's progress through his first year as we come to terms with his condition.  The big stuff and the small stuff.

Josh is an amazing baby, full of smiles and giggles and super chilled out.  His big sister dotes on him as do we all.

His story is just beginning.....but it's been quite eventful so far!

Our new arrival

First day home with big sister

Family photo