Pieces

At 1:30am this morning I was awake because I had shunt, scalp and abdominal throbbing and pain. I was up until 5am with my cat, Stella as we watched some early morning television. I went to sleep around 5am and the was up again at 7am for breakfast. Took a nap from 12pm-2pm and awoke with the same forehead, shunt and abdominal pains I’ve had off and on since 2014.

I had a much anticipated Shunt Series of X-Rays done after my appointment with the neurologist on Thursday. I received a phone call yesterday from the neurologist and she gave me the results. She had said the shunt system is in tack, except she noticed something: Pieces of my old shunt are still inside my neck behind my right ear and in my abdomen. I wasn’t exactly happy to hear about this, as I thought these pieces had been removed from the inside of my neck during the surgery I had in March 2014. Not sure what the new neurosurgeon will say about this when I see him later this month.  Does it mean I will have another surgery again to remove these pieces?

In the meantime, I’ve looked at the different type of programmable shunts based on the one I have and there are different types besides the proGav one which I have. Wondering whether or not I can get switched to either a non programmable valve or to an Aescula shunt which doesn’t have an anti-siphon device. The anti-siphon device is suppose to stop the shunt from over draining. It was doing this when it was on the wrong side of my brain from 2009-2014. It wasn’t over draining when it was on the right side of my brain. Therefore, I don’t believe I even need a shunt which is both a programmable and anti-siphon.  The anti-siphon device could be the cause of the shunt pain I have. The abdominal throbbing and pains could be from both the shunt and the fragments of the old one….