Lifeformz

My dad is a bone marrow recipient who is now alive because of a live donation of stem cells. We have nothing but praise for the donor who has remained anon. But 10 years ago he saved a life by something so simple. I always wonder how his last 10 years have gone and I'm grateful it was a live donation, and someone didn't have to die to save him, but I understand that from our transplantee friends that we've all made because of it, that that is often the case (death for a new life)

What do you hope to be doing in 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years time?

If it fails, will you also go through it again?

(not that I wish it to fail, but sadly there is the chance of multiple transplants, for those who aren't aware of the first transplant leading to more in the future if unlucky.)

Have you ever broken fingers doing Speed typing challenges?

The chiari malformation resonated with me. I had a small herniation diagnosed, originally from my LP shunt over draining which sucked that niggly bit down. It was all complicated in that the month they discovered it, through mri etc, my LP shunt failed anyhoo, so treatment was a cranial vault expansion (top part of the skull, rather than back of the neck) to make my head bigger to take more fluid in there, and relieve the Chiari with out having to go down decompression surgery. If I'm honest with the research I did into decompression surgery, especially from people who'd had it and it hadn't quite been fully successful, I wouldn't have done it either 20 odd years ago now.

Thank you for doing the AMA.

From what you've said, I don't think there was a choice with yours. But it gives me a whole new respect over people who have a chiari malformation, but more so after surgery too. When I was looking it up, I think a lot of people found that a lot of the symptoms did remain, which was one of the big things that put me off. It's not an easy surgery by far, whether it's a small herniation, or if your case with pretty bad pre-complications.

After your surgery, as you said your dura tore, did you experience anything like "ghosts" in your vision. I had a weird thing after the vault expansion surgery, which they released pressure under the dura as well, where I was seeing shadows of things, best way I could describe it was ghost images in my vision. I'd got massive optic nerve swelling anyhoo, but I couldn't really explain it to the neuro, but she'd told me that it was likely because they'd had to open the dura up, and as it healed back shut it'd resolve itself, which it did. But it was bizarre, like I was seeing a whole different world combined with the real one.

Does the slowing have any effect on phones prior to 6? Like 5s or the SE?