we are the Cumbee family and these are
our twins Rhys and Simon Rhys is very
outgoing he's always on the move clearly
and call him squirm cause he is squirming
around since birth he was squirming and
Simon's a little bit more inquisitive
he'll sit and just kind of watch and
very curious we went in for their
four-month just basic checkup the doctor
had said that she could not feel the
soft spot on his head so she wanted us
to take him to get a head x-ray and head
ultrasound to see if maybe the skull had
closed in yes
had closed she said but it could also be
possibly hydrocephalus
so the panic kind of set in for me she
was filling me in and im like alright it's gonna
be okay and this will be fine and then
the pediatrician was like all right
we'll get you a specialist we'll go meet
them and then fell into dr. Quincy's
arms and she took care of everything
hydrocephalus is fluid accumulation we
all have brain fluid and we resorb it we
produce it and resorb it every day and
in children there are certain conditions
in which they don't resort their own
fluid and so that's hydrocephalus and it
can be for a variety of reasons and we
talk about the surgical options one of
which is to put it hardware which is a
shunt which is a little tube but goes in
the fluid space of the brain connected
to a valve to regulate the flow and then
it's tunneled under the skin and goes
into the belly space so that the fluid
can be absorbed there and I worked
really well it's been done for years the
issue is that it's a physical system and
so it can clog the other surgical
treatment is to create a new passageway
for fluid is called an e TV or an
endoscopic third ventricular a STEMI and
that's where I take a scope and create a
new passageway for fluid and
the fluid spaces so that it can be
resorbed a different way and that's
pretty commonly done and has been around
for a really long time and works maybe
about half the time and kids
something called CPC which is cord
plexus cauterization and that's where we
will give heat to and sort of burn the
tissue inside the the fluid spaces the
ventricle you don't actually need this
tissue and when you combine that with
ETV it's about seventy percent
successful treating hydrocephalus
without being efficient and so I'm I
heard dad I was like oh my gosh that's
amazing like tell me more than she's
only I want to say one of a handful of
doctors around the world that do the
procedure and she's right here in our
backyard it's pretty impressive mm-hmm I
automatically upon meeting her and
figure you know her telling us what was
going on and everything felt that ease
that 45 minutes of surgery was the
roughest of our lives felt like to know
that our kid was having brain surgery I
mean I've never had brain surgery and
this kid right here is it's already a
chain aren't you
everything went really beautifully for
him surgery went really well he
recovered really really well and his
head he's been growing appropriately and
the shape has is much more
normal-looking he's a handsome kid and
yeah he's a really great success
immediately after surgery he acted like
nothing happened
each of his scans have been clean he's
hitting his milestones and everything so
it's been a very positive and kind of
comforting experience in the end what's
the coolest thing about it just that
everybody thinks that in a resource poor
environment like in sub-saharan Africa
that that we need to go there and teach
them things right that like we have all
the fancy things in America and we're
gonna bring them elsewhere what was
really cool about this is that this was
developed out of a need
and that American doctors now go there
to learn from them and I think we can
learn a lot from them just because they
treat so much more hydrocephalus they're
 
UNC babies for life
