Another Trial for Team Joseph
Another long one…you might want to print it out before you read it… 
Dear Family and Friends,
The intensity of our journey the past few days is almost beyond words! In order to tell you the complete story, I want to go back to Saturday morning (Nov. 4) when Chris and I were at the Badger football game. It was twenty minutes into the game when we received a phone call from my sister, Mary Jo, who was watching Joseph and Grace for us. She told us that Joseph had a headache; I could hear him screaming in the background. As you know from my previous e-mails, Joseph has been experiencing terrible headaches for the past several months. Well, we left the game as fast as we could to head home. When we were outside of Madison, Mary Jo called to say Joseph had fallen asleep. We decided to chance going back to the game. After parking once again, we were walking back to the stadium when we saw a woman walking with a terrible limp. We approached her to ask if she needed help. She told us she had misstepped off the curb onto her ankle, and we helped her walk the 4 blocks back to her apartment (directly across from the Stadium). After helping her up the 4 flights of stairs, getting her ice and her cell phone and leaving our cell phone numbers in case she needed us again, we headed back to the game. It was such a great blessing to be able to help Peg out! The Badgers won! And we enjoyed an early dinner with friends before heading home.
Joseph was doing great when we arrived home. He ate dinner and had fun “fencing with Daddy” before bedtime. At 8 PM, Joseph began another headache, this time extremely painful and accompanied by severe vomiting. It continued throughout the night, and by 3:30 AM Sunday, we knew we needed to take him into the ER. This is when the obstacles began… the Resident doctor did not take us seriously both on the phone and when we arrived in the ER. He made several very insensitive and arrogant comments, and he had absolutely no sense of urgency! Meanwhile, Joseph was still screaming out in pain (6AM at this point) and had vomited about 40 times (8-9 episodes). Eventually they did do a Quick Brain MRI which showed no change in Joseph’s brain (as you might remember, the scans have not been reliable for us in the past either.) And they admitted Joseph for observation…BIG MISTAKE! He should have gone from the ER to the OR! Instead we watched Joseph continue to suffer for another 8 hours. In that time we met with the Attending Physician, the partner for our neurosurgeon who was not on-call this weekend. When the Attending Physician came in, Joseph had fallen asleep for about 15 minutes. The Attending Physician said that we would see how he was when he woke up. Since the big confusion was if this was a migraine headache or shunt failure, it seemed appropriate to wait. If when Joseph woke up he still had a headache, then the plan was to take him to the OR where a spinal tap would be performed to see what the pressure was. If it was higher than the normal 18, then the Attending Physician was going to put in a frontal shunt in the left front ventricle in Joseph’s brain. (This is different than the shunt Joseph has had in the back of his head all along.)
It was tough for Chris and I because we had to make some really big decisions, and our trust factor with this “New Guy” was a lot less than with Dr. Iskandar who had been with us through everything. We prayed from the very depths of our souls for wisdom and discernment! In walks the Nursing Assistant, who ended up being the room mate of our regular babysitter! Elizabeth wasn’t even supposed to be on the Pediatric floor on Sunday, but things changed, and there she was helping us in the midst of this huge struggle! Such a reminder of God’s grace!
Anyway, when Joseph woke up 15 minutes later his headache was still incredibly painful. We then informed the resident, and we were told that we were waiting for the OR to “open up.” We waited, and waited, and waited…until Joseph began to be Bradychardic (heart rate was 52!), he was having SVT (a lethal heart rhythm, he was having apnea (I had to yell at him to breathe!) and he was becoming very unresponsive! After trying repeatedly to get the doctor again, finally I went to the nurse’s station and said to our nurse, “I demand to see the neurosurgeon NOW!” We were in the OR 10 minutes later! Praise God!
The spinal tap was performed…Joseph’s pressure was above 55! And his shunt surgery was successful. We did have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Iskandar over the phone and later in person. He relayed his utmost confidence in the Attending Physician’s skill as a surgeon and apologized profusely for the error of the “system”…the residents, and the breakdown in communication. Unfortunately, they did make many mistakes with Joseph. Dr. Iskandar told us that Joseph should have gone from the ER to the OR in 20 minutes, NOT the 9 1/2 hours it did take!!! Dr. Iskandar told us that it would NEVER happen again! Our situation was a learning experience for the doctors…that is a good thing.
On Monday morning when Joseph was telling the doctor what his headache was like, he asked me, “Mommy, what is that thing the pirates shoot off called?” I said, “A canon?” He said, “Yeah! It felt like there was a canon going off in my head!” (Can you believe that? A four year old—more descriptive and mature than some adults would be!)
Currently, Joseph is doing well; however, he has had periods where he is in a lot of pain in his lower back and legs. Initially we thought this was due to the spinal tap, but that pain should have been short lived. We are concerned why the pain continues…he can’t walk when he has these episodes, and I have to carry him. Also, today at 12 noon, Joseph had his first headache since Sunday. I felt so defeated when he told me, “Mommy, my head is hurting…” It was like having the wind knocked out of my sails! It was a small headache lasting only 5 minutes, thankfully. We have no idea what will happen now…will the headaches continue? Oh how I pray NOT! But no matter what happens, God has made it abundantly clear that He is with us in the midst of everything!
You know when we first started e-mailing you all asking you to pray for a ”Miracle for Joseph,” I never imagined that the journey would just keep getting more intense. Is it possible to trust that God is still in control when things feel so out of control? Is it possible that God hears our prayers and still says no to a complete healing because He has a different plan? YOU BET!!! Saturday morning at 11AM, I didn’t even know a woman named Peg existed…
Remember that woman who we helped? It turns out that she did break her ankle, and we would never have been there to help her if Joseph had not gotten a headache Saturday morning causing us to leave the Badger game! See, it was totally God’s grace that Joseph was okay for a couple of hours after that first headache which allowed us to return to the game, because it is most likely that his shunt was already failing!
Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your love. Thank you for growing with us as we all see God is much bigger than the box we so often put Him in!
Keeping our eyes on Him…no matter what! Angela and Chris Batterman
P.S. It’s pretty nutty, but in the midst of this all, Grace has a double ear infection, Joseph has a sinus infection, and I’m getting a heart ablation done next Tuesday! Please keep praying…know that we pray for you all as well! We love you.