5-Year-Old Caleb Wiggs From Kansas Selected as 2019 National Ambassador of Hydrocephalus Awareness for Incurable Brain Condition

Caleb came into this world at 25 weeks gestation, weighing 1lb 8oz and only 11 inches long. He spent the first 5 months of his little life in NICU. With many doctor visits and a lot of respiratory issues, Caleb spent a lot of time in the hospital. In October 2015 (20 months old) We were at our routine visit with his neurologist, when Dr. Christopher Smyser, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, looking at his chart noticed that his head had grown 4cm in 4 months.

He asked us to go to the Neurosurgery clinic and Dr. Limbrick would clarify what was going on. When talking to Dr. Limbrick he told us that Caleb had hydrocephalus and needed to have surgery as soon as possible. As a mom and dad of 4 other very healthy children this was some of the scariest news we could have been told. 18 days later we went in for his first brain surgery. On October 19th, Caleb had an ETV, (Endoscopic Third Ventriculostomy), put in.

Everything was going great! On November 14th, Caleb had a 35 min long seizure and was life flighted to Children’s hospital, where he was intubated and sedated for 3 days and what put on an EVD, (External Ventricular Drain), until he showed no sign of infection. After no infection he had his first VP shunt put into place. This was such a blessing! Our little man spoke some of his first words while being in the hospital. On Christmas day, Caleb started running a fever.

While corresponding back and forth with his neuro-team, he had frequent visits to the hospital but we were told that he had 2 viruses which are like common colds and the fever was related to that. After roughly a month of being in and out of the hospital and a lot of antibiotics. The fever was still coming back. The team decided to tap into the shunt and test the spinal fluid. He had a critical infection and we were admitted back into the hospital.

They removed the shunt and he had another EVD placed again for several days until he was infection free for 48 hours. Then placed another shunt in February 2016. We have been so blessed to of made it almost 3 years and no shunt revisions. In the coming weeks we are facing another surgery, because Caleb has started building fluid up on his brain.