Great news on grandson

We received very good news on my grandson last week. He has had a difficult start, three visits to hospital in the first 5 weeks of life, once in intensive care, and an initial diagnosis of 10% mortality rate and 50% risk of brain damage.

We were aware of the risk to his hearing caused by gentamicin, but other wise the risk of brain damage hadn't really sunk in. Fortunately or is it an answer to many praying on his behalf he was seen by the children's specialist hospital at Great Ormond Street in London in April 2010. They confirmed the diagnosis on CMN but reckoned that from the way his CMN satellites had developed he had a very low risk or neurological involvement, in other words a cautious all clear.

This is great news, an answer to prayer, and also a tribute to the work of Great Ormond Street hospital. I need to praise them for their excellence, in spite of my regular protests in this blog about socialised medicine!

The hospital recently featured on BBC TV. A tribute to the hospital but it hghlighted 2 issues to me:

1) So many of the doctors interviewed seemed to be aged 55 - 75...who is training up the younger replacements?

2) The horror of brain damage in children. They showed a young girl a few months old who entered hospital as an apparently normal healthy active child. Parents were warned and accepted the risk of brain damage as she had a general anaesthetic to allow a probably fatal aneurysm to be removed. She suffered brain damage whilst under anaesthetic, and was returned to the tearful parents as an inactive blind child.

My grandson had similar risks, but as far as we can see has been spared such horrors. He smiles and coos, follows sights and sounds, so we expect his brain is undamaged, thank God.