Hello. My name is Tashema and I couldn't help but respond. I absolutely understand your position right now. When is the surgery? My daughter has a shunt and I was nervous wreck as well. You are perfectly normal for how you are feeling. It will be very hard for you to deal with the immediate site of her after the surgery. If you are super cautious now with people holding her, oh boy it will get worse. But it's going to be alright! Your baby will heal and you will learn to read her signs of comfort and discomfort. I pray all goes well with the surgery and do all you can to support your own mental health. I too suffer from panic attacks, but since having my daughter with this condition it has gotten worse. I see a therapist and we are tweaking my meds. You are not alone. I hope we can keep in touch for support. I need a friend to help me just cope with all the ups and downs.

Your daughter is beautiful. I love that picture of her.

I am 37 and I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus at 6 weeks old, and I have had a shunt since age 7 weeks. Please I beg you treat your daughter like any other child. There are no restrictions with hydrocephalus. She can do anything any other child can do. Let her run and play. Let her climb a tree and scrap her knee. I understand that you are a nervous wreck, but let other people hold her.

Aside from the surgeries and over-protecting parents, my biggest challenges with hydro throughout my life has been taking longer to learn how to do physical things, such as walk, ride a bike and swim. I was walking at 15 months, instead of 12, I rode a bike at 8, instead of 6. I still consider myself a bit of a klutz. The important thing is I have done all of these things. I have also graduated with a Masters degree with honors, have a full time job and an apartment.

Your daughter is a perfectly normal baby who should live a wonderful life, with the occasional surgery.

There's people with vp shunts that play high school football.I,m also new to this my 4 mouth old daughter Haven has a vp shunt trying to learn all I can about it and hope we can fine another way to cure this together that's why I,m here.

I think overprotective parents and anxiety go with the territory when it comes to a condition like hydrocephalus. That being said, it's important not to let the fear take over and prevent you from living your life or your daughter from living hers.
I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus 3 weeks before I was born and this was in India at a time when they knew little about the condition and how it could be successfully treated. Not only was I dealing with the medical complications, but also a society that was not compassionate towards girls, especially those with medical problems. I was finally successfully treated in the US once my parents immigrated here. They got the same advice from my doctors that AS1977 gave about living a normal life, but by that time the fear and the anxiety had already set it and it was hard to undo. Let your daughter explore her world and do what she feels comfortable doing. Never let her feel that she is any less than her peers or anyone else because of her condition. Tell her to see it as a challenge, not an obstacle.

I've had hydrocephalus since I was 5 years old (or for all I know, it could've been since I was a baby myself; it just wasn't fully discovered until I was 5), so it' been 14-15 years with me. However I live my life just a normally as everyone else.

If she can barely hold her head up, that might be an increase in the circumference of her head; very common symptom of hydrocephalus. Have you noticed any other symptoms, such as vomiting or changes in her appetite?

Is your daughter getting a shunt to help drain out that unneeded fluid? If so, what kind Trust me, it'll help.

She'll be fine; she can still be as happy as any other baby and can still live a normal life as she grows.

Hello,

I do not normally reply to any of these conversations, but read your post and felt I had to. I am 30 and have had Hydro since I was a child. I have a shunt fitted, and live what I class as an active life. There are obviously restrictions as to what I can do and I work around them with no real issue,I do not have sky diving as one of my hobbies!!

Anyway, I wanted to reply to you, just to say, my dad was probably the same when I was a child, not that i remember that much. I have been so lucky with my family and my environment, I have been allowed a life but had the support i needed when I needed it. My dad has always protected me and helped me when I have needed it most, and I would not swap that for the world. It has been important to me to know that both my parents are there when things do get a bit hard. I know that most parents are protective of their children, but your daughter may need that extra eye on the odd day, and you should not be ashamed of being there for her. There are days that I can think off that I may not have wanted the extra help, being a stubborn female, but you do learn that it is good to have someone watching you back , especially when you may not see yourself. I am very close to my family, which helps when taking the world on, hahaha, as it sometimes feels :)

Carry on cuddling your beautiful daughter as i am sure she will appreciate it. As much as when I was a teenager I thought I could do anything, like all teenagers, you soon learn, Dads are very important, as are mums too obviously.

I hope her operation and recovery go well :)