Hi all..it's been SOOO long. Thought the original was back up again, last I heard (YESTERDAY) was they were waiting for some Mac OS CDs to come in the mail to restore everything. Sounds like that'll be up sometime in September, if you go to http://brain.hastypastry.net, there's an updated message as of the 22nd or something.

Anyway, I've been dying to share the news. I FINALLY got my programmable! It's a Medtronic Strata (I thought some of you guys had those, I don't remember). He was originally going to swap out the old VP I have, but due to the 22+ yrs it's been in, it's become a "part" of me I guess. Too much scar tissue to risk it. My neurosurgeon says it shouldn't hurt being in there. It's still on, but he doubts after so long it's totally functional to its potential. There was just too big of a risk of brain hemorrhage to pull the old shunt out.

The cool thing is, he NEVER did any ICP Bolt or lumbar puncture, so I totally got out of that icky experience. He did a trial of having the old shunt OFF (I have an OLD Medtronic MultiPurpose Valve with an on-off button). His idea was to see how I was with the shunt off for a week, BUT I didn't make it to 48 hrs without getting it turned back on. So, obviously I am shunt dependent. Really having a rough time of it through the healing process though. Nauseous a lot...not sure how normal this is as it's only my 2nd revision. Last one, I was 5 yrs old. I'm 29 now.

The sad part in all this, I lost the job I had just over 2 yrs, the day I went in and told them I was going to need off for the surgery. The department I was working in got shut down. I was in Business Development, BUT I also did some sales and stuff. They chose 2 people to go into Sales for smaller accounts and I got let go. I made over 80,000 in sales since the beginning of this year for the company. My best friend got picked who was right up there with me in amount of Sales. and so did this other girl who was pregnant, but DIDN"T EVEN COME CLOSE to the amount of sales Eric & I had...I think it was because of having so many medical appointments, with my neuro trying to figure out what was going on with my head....I'm pretty bummed...