I began to get a headache again on Thursday 8th November. I couldn’t believe it, I had only been out of hospital a week. Normally we leave it a few days to see what happens but because it was so soon after my operation we decided not to waste any time so we went back into hospital. The surgeon did all the usual checks and decided to carry out a small operation the next day to put an ICP bolt under my skin and then do some pressure monitoring again. This was going to happen on Friday 9th November (the 6th year anniversary of my tumour being diagnosed). What a way to celebrate! The surgeon didn’t want to rush in to any shunt revision operations. Worst thing was that we were supposed to be staying the night at the Hilton Hotel while my mum and dad went to the Children’s Charity Annual Ball – bummer! My sister went to the ball instead of my mum and she had a brilliant time.

After a few days the ICP monitor hadn’t shown any unusual pressure issues but the surgeons decided to replace the fixed shunt valve with a reprogrammable valve so that the pressure settings could be adjusted if necessary. Maybe a fixed valve was not right for me! I was in a lot of pain after that operation and I had to spend a little longer down in recovery until the doctors got the pain medication to the right levels for me. It took me a few days to recover as per usual. The shunt had been set at 100 during the operation but an X-ray of the valve showed it had moved to 80. It was decided to just leave it at that setting and see how things went.

The morning before I got discharged I was feeling quite good  – no headache – so I went along to Zone 12 and helped Ally with the Christmas Door. Here is the finished product:         

I went home on Thursday afternoon with no headache and I was very optimistic…..