Coping With Hydrocephalus

When I was Born On April 13, 1989 all went well as I was brought into the world happy and healthy. At nine days old I had a broken blood vessel in my brain which lead to a stage four bleed. At the time doctors didn’t have much knowledge of hydrocephalus so I was sent off to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

I basically spend my first 7 months of my life in the hospital due to infections which lead to many shunt revisions seven to be exact ( that I cant remember thankfully). But when I was at the age of four I started having massive headaches and once again my VP shunt was infected thus time for another surgery. Once again I thankfully cant even remember that one.

In December of 2007 I began having headaches again on a daily basis, so I went to the doctor and he believed it was just allergies ( since I haven’t been taking medication regularly it made sense). so I began to take the allergies medication regularly, but still continued to have headaches . this is a pain I wish I could forget but sadly I can’t I started vomiting a few times as well as lost control of my legs and began to stumble from time to time.

As my family and I headed up to MN for Christmas the headaches stopped and I could breathe clearly , so naturally I was overjoyed and once again convinced it was just allergies. Then on December 21st-23rd the headaches returned but naturally went away. On December 23rd I couldn’t take the pain any longer so my mother and I went to the hospital to get things checked out ( we always carry my most recent CT scans just incase something happened) and as it turned out my shunt of 14 years failed on me.

So I was rushed by ambulance on the night of December 23rd in a blizzard. There were many roads being closed and my parents could no longer follow the ambulance. At that time a man in a white truck asked them where they were headed and he instructed them to follow him , my parents were taken around the road closers and as they were about to roll down their window to thank him , he was gone! Completely out of sight gone, my mother was convinced it was an angel sent to guide them.

Due to all the accidents on the road, doctors had to wait to operate till tomorrow (December 24th) so I sat in a hospital bed hopped up on as many pain killers I needed to ease the pain in my head and boy did I need a lot. I will never forget the pain I suffered that December in 2007. I had surgery on the 24th and returned to my family Christmas evening. As of today everything is working fine and I now have 2 VP shunts in my brain and if by chance that the first one begins to work again that just fine with me