BABY LEVANTRO’S SURGERY – GOAL R 350 000
Baby Levantro was born on Jan 21, 2018 at 18:26 weighing 2.65kg. He was born via emergency
c-section for fetal distress.
My baby was born not breathing, being blue, had no pulse and swallowed a lot of meconium. Two days after his birth he was diagnosed with symmetrical hydrocephalus of the third and iatrical ventricles, (water on his brain) and had to get an operation to drain the water. So, when he was 11 days old he had his first major brain operation where they had to put in a VP shunt. He was sent to recovery for a few days in hospital and afterwards we were discharged.
We were home for 4 days when he showed symptoms of a shunt problem. We went in via emergency and was told that the shunt was “blocked”. This was not the case as we found out later. The shunt was not in the peritoneal cavity (meaning the wrong place in his tummy.) So, he had a shunt revision of 4 hours. Again, after some time recovering in hospital we were sent home. This time we were home for 8 days before the symptoms started again. So again, we took him in via emergency, but we were told that the shunt was working fine but that he had hospital acquired meningitis!
The paediatrics believed that there was a problem with the shunt so for a week they and the neurosurgeons had a battle (all the while the water got worse and his head circumference grew. After a long battle the neurosurgeons were finally convinced there was something wrong and established that it’s not in the peritoneal cavity (AGAIN!!!!)
So, a 3rd operation was done. We were in hospital for 3 weeks before getting discharged. He seemed to be doing fine but I’m devastated to inform that the symptoms are back again. We do not have medical aid and his dad lost his job just before he was born. So, we rely on the public health system (which is failing us terribly). We cannot take him back to the public hospitals and we need R350 000 for the operation to be done privately.
He is 9 weeks old and still weighs only 2.9kg. The symptoms include vomiting and fever (among others) which is very bad, because the vomiting stops him from drinking and keeping in any milk/glucose. And because of the hydrocephalus fever equals seizures.
We desperately need help.
We cannot take him to hospital unless we have the funds and the longer it stays untreated the more brain damage it causes!!
Thank you in advance for any donations.