Thank you all for your responses.
My symptoms have increased, I do try to hide it from the wife 'cos all she does is stress. But my hiding charade hasn’t exactly been working of late. I often go see my dr for meds but never really mention any of this, only because I’ve been on that merry-go-round before, I get sent from one dr to another, no one has any great answers and eventually they turn it around and point at me. I don’t need it, so I haven’t bothered.
With my last pcp appointment I was in LOTS of discomfort and he could see it, he sent me for scans. He got the radiologists report and called my home telling the wife I needed an appointment ASAP. So what did she do… …PANIC. Went to the pcp with wifey in tow and was told ‘might be a 2 year wait’ she was not impressed and she told him so. But it’s the public system so you’ve got to go on a waiting list.
We got home to find a letter from the hospital neurologists for the regular appointment, I thought nothing of it, but ‘she’ had other plans. Went to the appointment not expecting much and wifey was giving me the evil eye, and without saying it was telling me ‘TELL HIM or I WILL’ I got the message and told him. I took the scans and report from the pcp and the neuro got real concerned. Seems the tube is drilling its way into my bowel. If we leave it, it could pierce the bowel and result in septicaemia. Not good. It could pierce the bowel and progress to pierce the stomach itself. Even worse scenario. So the long and short of it is they have to go fish it out.
But at this point they don’t know if its the fractured shunt or the functioning shunt that’s causing the issue. My ‘hope’ is that its the fractured one because then it will just be a case of removal. If it’s the functioning shunt the whole damn thing will need to be replaced AGAIN and all the dramas that come with that. Ohh fun, fun, F#$@%^& FUN. Happy? I am not.
I am ‘trying’ not to stress, ‘she’ does enough of that for both of us. One ball of stress is enough for this household. I ‘try’ to look at things logically. At this point there are too many unknowns. Stressing about unknowns is a waste of time and energy. We need to get the information, make a plan, then work on that plan. Presently this is all up to the dr’s, I have no control, no information and no plan. I have pain, but then that’s pretty normal for me, so I have to manage that and that’s enough for me at the moment. Then we’ll get further info and act on it from there.
Does that sound logical?? or Am I just burying my head in the sand?
I’m still a bit numb about it all to be honest, I have TOO many questions, not enough answers and a wife I’m trying to stop from going worse case scenarios lines. I could easily go ripping my hair out, but there ain’t much left to rip out lol
Merl