Bongoots

How nice is your mom's cooking? She make good spaghetti?

I had my shunt put in when I was a tiny 10 weeks old back in 1986. I'm now 31 at 5'7"+ with the exact same shunt and no major issues or revisions at all. I can upload a GIF of a head CT scan showing what it's all about if anyone is interested.

My only issues in life are blood pressure and heart rate. I can't go from a resting heart rate up to a very fast heart rate, otherwise all that blood pumping goes to my head and I have a headache for up to an hour until my brain physically feels better - i.e., I never run for a bus!

Other times I can "hear the sea in my ears" if I stretch and squeeze my muscles or if I'm sat on the throne having difficulty.. or if I stand up too quickly and walk somewhere my head feels awkward with the extra pressure until it settles after a few minutes.

My shunt is non-programmable. Heyer-Pudenz valve, I think.

Here's my brain, from a CT scan in 2008 when I was 22 years old. I had had some weird headaches and fuzzy/tingling sensations on my brain for a few months that I kept ignoring until my friends forced me to get my head checked. After the CT scan the headaches stopped and I've not had them since.

If I do get a headache then I simply have to be able to discount it as tired/hungry/thirsty/exhausted mentally, etc. Have something sweet, something salty, some water, a headache tablet and some sleep, then see how I am. Doesn't happen often at all.

Anyway, the scan is from the top of my head down, and then reversed back up again. You can see the hole which was drilled into my skull when I was 10 weeks old, the one-way valve just inside my skull, and the tip of the shunt in the middle of my brain. Keep a close eye on the GIF up and down and you'll also be able to see the shunt tube outside my skull - it shows up as a white dot that moves a little bit around my head behind my right ear and down my neck.

Edit: I'm also surprised about the length of my shunt. My parents say that they were told that excess tubing had been put in which would simply 'uncoil' in my peritoneum as I grew, though the specialist I saw in 2008 said that was a lie. I know for certain that I can feel the tube with my fingers all the way down my chest plate, so it's at least that long and just dribbles brain juices somewhere down there. My excuse is that I don't have a beer belly.. I have a brain belly!