by Rower Girl

Created on: June 05, 2009

I was born three months premature and was delivered by my father in my home. I was 2 lbs. 7 oz. and 15 inches long. Despite my small size, I came out screaming and crying. However, there was something wrong. When I arrived at the ICU, after much observation, it was discovered that I had a large bleed in my brain that was putting much pressure on it, also known as hydrocephalus. I was one of 2 of 1000 children who are diagnosed with it each year. Fortunately, treatment was possible: implantation of a long plastic "passageway" tube that runs from the head to the abdomen and allows the blood to filter normally in and out of the head, called a VP shunt.

Living with a VP shunt has affected my life, even as much as I have tried to make it not matter. Because the shunt is placed just so that it could be easily damaged by blunt force trauma and is so fragile, I have to take extra caution when and if I choose to do normal teenage activities like softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, bike riding pretty much anything that involves the use of a ball and/or has a risk of head trauma or falling.

I have often struggled with this lifestyle, particularly because I am a fairly active person. Most of my peers have gotten over the elementary school-aged rationality that different is bad and have ceased the constant questioning about why I cannot participate in regular sports during gym class as they do, or why I used to be slower than most children when I would run or do other activities. Rather, now, I take their questions as an opportunity for me to express myself and my flaws alike, to the world. I explain my situation with ease, while also including that, despite my setbacks in physical activity, I have found substitutes for the things I am unable to do, and enjoy others such as long distance running and crew, which are both non-contact.

I have stopped wondering to myself why I am the child with the weird disorder and have learned to accept it as my life. I have even thought about the possibility of using my hydrocephalus and VP shunt and how they have affected me throughout my life, to my advantage on future college applications. Although, in the past, I have dismissed this idea as plausibly unjust to those in similar situations worse off than myself, I have come to realize that these obstacles, as I call the hydrocephalus and shunt, are what makes me ME and I cannot dispute that. My life was prolonged because of that shunt and I am going to make the most of it, if I can and show not only colleges and my peers, but the entire community that ce qui embellit le desert, c'est qu'il cache un puits quelque part (Le Petit Prince, 78) Or more simply, what makes something or something special is that it hides something somewhere, like me and my shunt.

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