LOG 21: V P Shunt

Aiwa, the trailer seemed to have gotten a great response from you guys, time for the real show to start, don’t you think? Wait for it, wait for it…. Anytime now… well, the last log did start the stone rolling. Let’s keep the momentum, right? Ok, so on the first Monday of December 2016, I had my first embolization. We did not stop there, no breathers, because on the 2nd Monday of December, I had my 2nd embolization. We had thought (and hoped) that the two embolizations would suffice and the AVM would be blocked completely, thereby leaving no sword of “threat of a re-bleed” hanging over our heads. The two embolizations passed on blissfully unnoticed (except for interrupting my therapy schedules). Then, the third Monday of December arrived. I had that butterfly-feeling in my stomach that everyone keeps talking about from time to time… you know, the one that pops up when you know something big is coming? Well, they did have another surgery planned on the third Monday too. But, this wasn’t an ordinary surgery. They were going to put a piece of tech in my body that would keep me alive i.e. they were making me a cyborg. Remember the device that the doctors were speculating about with my parents that could possibly take care of my CSF circulation issue in my skull permanently? Yes, that device was (is) called the VP Shunt. In the most simple of words, the VP Shunt consists of tubes that open into the skull and the peritoneal cavity (That’s as scientific as I can be). The whole apparatus has a valve in the “skull portion” that is controlled by a microchip, which has a pressure sensor. Normally, the CSF in your skull is at a certain pressure for the normal functioning of your brain. In case of hydrocephalus (as in my case), the CSF pressure (or rather IntraCranial Pressure) is a lot more than normal. Therefore the microchip is set at a specific pressure, and if the IntraCranial Pressure in the skull goes above that, the valve opens and drains the extra CSF into the peritoneal cavity. Pretty simple, right? Took me some time to pen it down but it sounds more fascinating when the doctor explained it to me, I assure you. If you’re a regular reader, then you probably remember that they had cut out bone flap from my skull (craniotomy) and it was spending its days frozen in cryo-preservation back home in Dubai. So, finally on the 3rd Monday of December, they planned to do my shunting as well as Cranioplasty (putting my skull bone flap back in place). Wow, two surgeries on the same day, one on one free (well, not literally, of course)! Everything seemed to be going fine but, in the OT, when my body went under the knife, it chose a very fine moment to revolt and get a Seizure. So they had to Abort Mission and decided to just do the Shunting and do the Cranioplasty some other time. How would they put my bone flap back if it was frozen in Dubai though? That was a bit complicated, so that is for another log guys. Fast forward, that way, I had to have my cranioplasty done on the 4th Monday of December. Quite a month that was, 4 Mondays-4 Surgeries! 5 down(including the one I had in dubai), how many more to go? How many more until I can resume a normal teenager’s life again, how much longer? Stay tuned guys. December almost got over… but the story isn’t finished yet…

Leave a Reply