Tracy
HiNancy! This is Matts' Mom and I can tell you from personal experience that sometimes shunts can malfuntion, and that they are sometimes hard to detect with CT scans or MRI. The shunt itself has to have a pressure test done, and doctors are not easy to convince, and with good reason, as this is a very invasive procedure. The risk of infection is high but Matts' older sister has been through this when she was 11 yrs old. The doctor had to proceed and only found out by surgery that she was indeed in shunt block. This presents with risks very high but we took the chance and she is fine now. She is 23 and overcome many odds. But I can say it is a very tough call to make. Matts' surgery is now being done successfully, here in Calgary Canada. He will probably check his e-mail later and reply to you directly. We have been blessed with this new procedure. Feel free to reply to me again directly at troth@tcel.com. Good luck, Tracy