May 22

May 22 arrived and we headed up to our local Children's Hospital. The neurosurgeon was four (!) hours late! They did take us to an exam room after an hour, and we waited there for three hours. D was understandably full of nervous energy. He had a few angry outbursts in the exam room. I had brought cards, the iPad, books, snacks, and drinks. Those helped for a bit, but three hours is an awful long time for an eight year old to wait! The nurse kept coming in offering us food and drink, but she never could give us an update on the surgeon. After three hours in the exam room, he showed up. This is the same neurosurgeon that operated on E, and we really like him. He examined D thoroughly and then took me into a separate room. H showed me D's MRI and explained that his Chiari was 11mm, but he pointed out that D did not have a syrinx. So, it was not as severe as E's. He did not want to perform surgery on him at this time. I talked to him about D's behavior concerns. He told me that that was nothing new to him. Most Chiari patients had other disorders (such as: ADD/ADHD, Bipolar, Depression, Autism, ODD, etc.) He also told me that there was some talk about whether Chiari caused mental disorders because so many Chiari patients were diagnosed with them, too. He referred us to the Psychology department at the hospital. Concerning the Chiari, the neurosurgeon said that D was young to be diagnosed, and obviously, he has a lot of brain growth left, so they'll have to keep an eye on it. It may get worse like E's, there's a slight chance it could get better, or it may stay the same. He wanted to wait a full year to repeat D's MRI, so he will have a repeat in February 2014. The neurosurgeon told me that someone from Psychology would call us the next day.