Sunday, July 22, 2012

Summary of the July Meeting

Great July meeting!  We had a small meeting, but a very successful one.

Among the topics we discussed was the use of scans on kids.  A recent incident at Tacoma's Mary Bridge Children's Hospital inspired the discussion.  Briefly, a small child was taken to Mary Bridge after a fall from an upstairs window.  It wasn't known if the child ever lost consciousness, but he was crying & vomitting.  The ER doc who treated him, allegedly, didn't feel that any scan was necessary, despite the classic symptoms of a head injury & the specifics of the situation.  Ultimately, the child died & an autopsy discovered that he had a clot that was putting pressure on his brain, ultimately killing him!  Our group's hearts go out to the family of this child.

Something that was also discussed, as part of this topic at the meeting, was that there are lots of different types of scans, some of which don't deliver the level of radiation that the hospital/doctor talked about & was mentioned in some of the news reports of this.

We also discussed our group's desire to get some publicity focused on us for September's Hydrocephalus Awareness Month.  Unfortunately, our state government doesn't do much to highlight the issue.

I've been updating our information and added some resource lists to our own group's focus on public awareness & reaching out to those of all ages who are living with hydrocephalus, their loved ones & caretakers.

Looking forward to the August meeting! 

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