Thursday, January 29, 2004 4:46 PM CST

As of now, AIDAN doesn't have a shunt!

He went to surgery at about 10 am and was out only about 90 minutes later. About an hour after that he was laughing and in good spirits. He is now asleep, and Kevin is out walking around the city with Paddy while I write this quick update.

The MRI yesterday was inconclusive. His ventricles were slightly enlarged and they couldn't get a good view of the ventriculostomy. But because he seemed to tolerate having his shunt clamped just fine over a period of 24 hours, the neurosurgeon thought it made sense to go ahead and take out the hardware. He wants to keep Aidan in the PICU overnight for observation and then have him stay on the regular pediatric floor over the weekend. If on Monday he is still fine, he can go home and have a followup MRI in about 3 months.

While reading this, please keep in mind what Aidan's nurse this morning said (she knows him from way back post-transplant): "Aidan writes his own book." That is, Aidan NEVER seems to do anything quite the way anyone expects him to. Well, hardly ever. We're hoping and trusting that everything will go smoothly and according to plan, and so far it has, today at least. But I don't want to make it sound like a sure thing : ).

But for now, it sure is nice to see Aidan with no tubes coming out of him, for the first time in over 3 weeks.

And seeing him laugh at a jack-in-the-box the Childlife specialist brought him today was also nice. I can't wait until he is home playing with his siblings, and doing normal four year old things.