Since the weather has been getting warmer, my shunt has been behaving itself.  Since Wednesday, the ProGav hasn’t been bothering me, no scalp pain, no shunt noises. One day this week I heard the distal catheter drain csf into my abdomen. Other than that, it’s been behaving itself.  As the heat outside get warmer, the humidity bothers my shunt sometimes and I can feel the heat directly from the sun on the magnet inside my head. I have to remember to wear a hat when I’m outside during these summer months.

I joined an online adults with hydrocephalus support group a while ago and occasionally receive updates from group members. I also read about stories people in the group post. This week I found one which was familiar based on the television show, Face/Off.

The last time I watched a few episodes was during a shunt revision stay in the hospital in 2011.
Someone in the group had mentioned the March 22, 2017 episode of this show was about Frightening Families.  Group 1 featured three characters from a circus trio. One of them was a child like creature with an enlarged head in a wheelchair depicted as having hydrocephalus.

People in the online support group were quite upset about this depiction. I wasn’t happy about it either. Especially since it doesn’t represent everyone who has hydrocephalus. We know hydrocephalus affects people of various ages: infants, children and adults. Unfortunately, since hydrocephalus isn’t well known, a lot of people automatically think most people with hydrocephalus are severely disabled. Many people in the support group commented on how this episode reinforces these stereotypes.

I wrote a comment about this episode to Syfy.

The full episode of Face/Off which aired March 22, 2017 can be found Youtube.

At 31:19 – The family of creatures in the circus are introduced to the judges.

At 34:02 – Where the judges analyze the wheelchair character with hydrocephalus

A description of the episode can be found here.