Hello. I am a 34 yr old single, disabled mother of a thirteen year old daughter and I have multiple neurological conditions. Pseudo tumor cerebri being the most of my concern. I have had multiple vp shunt failures and I am certain that this one has also failed. But this time I have additional symptoms that I've never experienced before. Including changes in mental awareness and psychological as well as intellectual issues. My neurosurgeon doesn't seem to be concerned with this. She is a great surgeon and has replaced for vp shunts already. However, the last time I had developed a staph infection on my brain and I nearly died before finally storming into her office and demanded that she doesn't something to help me. Apparently she has simply stretched herself way to thin by opening more offices than she can manage. I am hesitant to go to another neurosurgeon due to a horrible experience in the beginning with a quack who put a lumbar shunt in and ultimately another surgeon found that he had placed an old, outdated & recalled shunt model and he didn't put in a control valve to boot. By the time I had found another surgeon willing to do an exploratory surgery he found that my pressures were so high that he couldn't understand how I walked into the hospital on my own without having an aneurysm or stroke. According to my current neurosurgeon, any operation on my brain has triple the risks due to the original lumbar shunt draining too much fluid for an extended period of time has caused my ventricles to become abnormally narrow and it caused my brain and skull to partially detach. Any suggestions as to what my next step should be?