Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Head bleeds, by the numbers

The docs measure head bleeds on quantitative scales. I'll try to update what we know about Max's head bleeds and associated hydrocephalus (aka the northern front). This may be disturbing, so feel free to skip the rest of this post. Max's head bleeds aren't the most important thing about him.

Our understanding is that Max had a grade 1 or 2 bleed on right side; this is not considered that serious and is generally thought to just be a risk factor for developmental delays. More seriously, Max also has a grade 3 bleed on the left side of his brain. This bleed is "periventricular", meaning that it is mostly inside the ventricle but that it had also involved the surrounding brain tissue. The MRI indicated that the extraventricular bleeding was, it seems, confined to the so-called "white matter" of the brain.