Since my neuro appointment yesterday, I’ve been interested in hydrocephalus as it relates to preemies. Now of course chances are low that I truly have shunt failure, but just the fact that I was confronted with it made me interested. I can hardly remember anything about my shunt or hydro. I do remember my father once looking at my tummy to see if my shunt was still long enough and I remember one visit with my neurosurgeon, but all I remember about him was that he had a foreign accent.
I never even tell people I have a shunt now. About seven years ago, I was going for some physical exam or the like and the folk who did it said something about my shunt, but I cannot remember what it was about. When asked about my medical history while in the evals week at rehab, I didn’t even think about mentioning my shunt. During my physical therapy eval, the folk saw my scar on my belly and asked what it was. I said I have a shunt and he asked what it was for. I said I didn’t know. I truly know very little about my condition. In the 1999 remedial educationalist’s report, it says that I had a brain bleed, probably in the NICU, and that I have a shunt that’s been lengthened once. Apparently, Dad doesn’t even know whether I got my brain bleed in the NICU. I looked up some info on Intraventricular Haemorrhage (IVH), which is, according to someone on Preemie-L, the same as a brain bleed. This info sheet says that most IVH occurs within the first three days of life. I think it’s strange that my parents don’t know when I had my IVH, since this sheet says that only the severe cases of IVH lead to hydro. I thought parents in 1986 were well-informed and if I did have a severe form of IVH, the doctors should’ve known about it, shouldn’t they? This is kind of strange.
