Headaches are such a pain!

Just a quick little update into the happenings lately with Gabrielle. We went last Thursday to New Orleans and she was put under for a quick sutcher removal. Dr. Volk said everything was looking and healing up great. She has been complaining of headaches off and on since the surgery was performed on 2/11. Gabby has never been one to complain of headaches unless she was having a bout of sinus/allergies. Saturday we got out of the house for a while and she did exert herself much more than she has in weeks. Saturday evening she said that her head hurt much worse than it had been. Saturday evening and all day Sunday she stayed with a headache even after alternate dosing of Tylenol and Advil and also adding in Dimetapp. She spent much of the day just laying around sleeping and watching tv. We went this morning and followed up with Dr. Volk, her neurosurgeon. When she was having her typical stuff done like weight, height, temp; it was found that she was running a fever of 100.4. She had not ran a fever over the weekend so this was a new symptom. Once we saw Dr. Volk, Bart and I expressed our concerns to him of the headaches being linked to a possible CSF (Cerebrospinal Spinal Fluid) leak. He explained to us that being she is just days away from being a month out of from surgery that he really doubts that she would develop a leak this late. He stated that her incision is healing beautifully. Dr. Volk said that usually at this period of healing if a CSF leak occurs there will be a pocket of fluid that develops on the incision line. Currently, there is no such area. He suggested that we follow up with her pediatrician due to the fever and headaches. Before we even left his office I called Dr. West to get an appointment for Gabby this afternoon. Our next suspected cause of the headache and fever was a bladder infection. Gabby's usual symptoms for bladder infection are fever, headache and nausea. Bart brought her and they drew a urine sample which currently is not showing any sign of infection. We have decided to culture the sample but go ahead and start antibiotics until we receive the culture results back on Wednesday afternoon. In addition to the urine culture, Dr. West also suggested doing a viral panel swab to test her for all of the kinds of flu, RSV and other common viruses. Hopefully, by Wednesday evening we will have some answers as to why our sweet girl is having these headaches. We will update once we have some answers.

Some good news is that she can go back to school in person once we figure out what is going on and her fever is gone! She is so excited to be back at school with her friends!