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“As you sow, so you shall reap”. I had “sowed” 5 Surgeries in my head till now, what would I reap? That was the question. After all of the zillion therapy sessions and pain that I had endured, would there finally be some light shining as I neared the end of the tunnel? Apologies, staring at white ceilings all day in the hospital seems to have driven me a bit… nuts, and all I seem to spout is philosophy now, haha. These surgeries and procedures couldn’t prevent my brain from having its own share of “Fun”, though. And my, oh my, did it have a weird idea of “Fun”. All this while up to the surgeries, it had me continuously vomiting. Posture change?-›Vomit, Eat/Drink anything?-›Vomit, No reason whatsoever?-›Vomit, Just because it felt like playing around?-›Vomit! They kept trying different medicines to stop the vomiting, but as it turns out, pills could not stop the vomiting. Here I was becoming an artist in throwing up! And all the while, my family becoming expert at managing every small degree of movement, change, medicine, food or whatever to stop me throwing up 😊 😊 Oops! In all of the excitement of penning down my story, I seem to have forgotten about the benefits of the “Shunting” (LOG 20, if you need some memory polishing). The Shunt had to first be set at a pressure that would be just right for my brain. It was a “Trial and error” process. They had first set the pressure at 140. but this didn’t prove to be the optimum pressure as there were still symptoms such as vomiting and headache that persisted. They then set it at 160 but that too caused headaches. The Shunt had anyhow drained all the extra CSF and thereby rid me of the hydrocephalus, and relieved the extra pressure that was weighing down my brain and its activities This displayed immediate positive outcomes and my therapy sessions finally started showing the results we were all hoping (and aiming) for. For quite immediately, once the Shunting was complete, there was just good news everywhere, my brain’s performance of the “art of throwing up” ceased in frequency and my left side seemed to be finally cooperating instead of behaving like a spoilt brat. After this we had to go through the really funny, strange, and arduous “bone flap journey” (see LOG 22), after which we finally were ready for my Cranioplasty, or in other words, my “putting the bone back where it belongs” surgery. The Cranioplasty was successful but otherwise uneventful. We barely had a few days of therapy before it was time for the Cranioplasty. Fast forward, post Cranioplasty. The Shunting and Cranioplasty showed wonderous results, I was able to do things that seemed like mission impossible until now. My body seemed to regain some of its power and movement. This put us on track and there were talks of discharge yet again from my doctors (which by now started looking like a politician promise to me 😊). Would my body finally allow me to be discharged and go home or was there to be yet another loop on this rollercoaster ride? Stick around to find out in the next few logs… J