Full story

On Mother's Day, our lives changed forever. Brantley was life-flighted to Children's in Birmingham due to having a Hydrocephalus (build-up of fluid on the brain). Once at Children's, Brantley was incubated due to shallow breathing and heart rate dropping. That same night the doctors would add a drain to his brain to help remove the fluid. On May 11th, Brantley had an MRI to help determine what was causing the build of fluid. The next morning our families would be told that Brantley has Chiari 1 Malformation (a piece of his brain was blocking his spinal cord to where the ventricles and his brain couldn't do their jobs. On Thursday, Brantley underwent Chiari Decompression surgery, which is where they take a little piece of his spine to make room for the brain. The surgery lasted about 90 minutes but, with putting Brantley to sleep, waking him up, and going to recovery, it lasted around 3 hours. They said they were going to leave the drain in throughout the weekend, and towards the end of the weekend, they were going to move up the pressure and then beginning of week remove the drain if all goes well and then monitor him to see if the fluid is draining correctly. If the fluid does not drain correctly, he will have to have a shunt put in, but doctors are very hopeful that it is not going to be the case. We are unsure at this point how long our stay will be. Brantley was moved out of PICU(Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and into the Special Care Unit. 

By doing this campaign, we are hoping to help with the burden of medical expenses that occurs during this time.