[lcms0516]

I was born in Berlin(Germany) in May 1967. I am American by birth. My dad was working in Berlin for TIME Magazine. He even has picture of me holding up the newspaper at 1yr. the day the paper said Bobby Kennedy had been killed.

My 'Hydro' story actually starts while my mother was pregnant with me. I had a ventricular brain aneurysm, along the Vein of Galen. When I was born, my head started growing at a faster percentile, than the recommend growth charts. But for months, the doctors weren't listening to my parents. Finally they did and, it was determined that I had Hydrocephalus. I n' my parents flew from Berlin to Boston. Where I had my first surgery. It was then discovered, that I had the brain aneurysm. The aneurysm was clipped, and I was shunted for the Hydrocephalus. Over the next eight years, I had five more revisions, the most recent being when I was 9yrs.-old(1976). since then, have had a few shunt scares, but nothing that was an actual malfunction. Later in 1976, there was one time I was traveling with my mother n' younger brother, on the way to Grand Canyon(we were living in Florida in the early part of the year), and my mother had to speed up the interstate to Billings(Montana) because I was violently vomiting. That turned out not to be a malfunction. In 2003, I was living on my own and engaged to be married. One day, I had to tell my fiance to call a cab(that is a story, in and of, itself) and get me to the hospital fast. I got to the hospital. The ER doc asked me if everything was alright. Without missing a beat, I vomited on the floor. The ER doc had to do a little dance backwards. Then the ER doc said "Somebody call housekeeping". That was not a malfunction but, 24-pack box of mixed nuts, raisins n' MnM's, that I had received for my 36th birthday. I ate the whole box. The third time I thought I had a malfunction was Super Bowl Weekend 2011. I had moved in to a relative's home and closer to immediate family. That turned out to be from exposure to the gas from the furnace, from repeatedly resetting the furnace. I ended up vomiting first at home, then in a relative's car on the way to the neurologist. All the CT-Scans came back normal.