Shunt Donation Project – Three shunts = three lives (and another forty are on the way!!)

If you’ve just jumped in, you can read more about my Shunt Donation Project (no. 6 on the List) here.

And if you’re wondering what this ‘F-List’ I keep banging on about is, you can read about that here.

Yep – I have shunts.  Three Medtronic shunts – the whole system (valve bit which goes in your head, reservoir bit and all the tubing for the rest of the body).  And a manual.  They’re actually sitting on my kitchen worktop and I can’t quite get my head around the fact that only seven weeks after I started to try and get this off the ground, I actually have some life-saving equipment.

First three shunts. If this is how happy I am with three, what am I going to be like when the other forty arrive??

These first shunts were donated by a very kind, very helpful and very supportive lady from a hospital.  I said to her that collecting them on Wednesday made me feel happier than a seven year-old on Christmas morning.  As if that wasn’t enough, the forty shunts from Codman have passed their audit and are on their way!  I don’t usually whoop but, seriously – whoop!
It’s been very interesting journey so far. I honestly expected to be faced with lots of ‘we know you mean well but here are the problems and reasons why you should maybe drop it’ conversations from hospital professionals.  Not because I think they’re mean or negative or anything like that but because I had no clue about what limitations I might encounter, no idea about hospital policies regarding donating unused equipment and no inkling of whether I would be able to persuade them that this was worth doing.  I couldn’t have been further off the mark.  All I’ve had is support, help, encouragement and generosity.  It’s heartwarming.  To think that this is only after the first two hospitals have responded is a good sign.  My initial plan to hit as many as I could at once I had to re-think as it was simply too many names/emails/phone numbers/different stages of development for my shunted brain to keep up with.  This system is working better: choose a couple of hospitals and then hassle the hell out of them until they submit!  (Kidding).
So now I need to get these shunts packed and off to their rightful owners; children currently lying in pain overseas.  Quicker the better; I shall update you soon.  To everyone who has helped and/or sent supportive comments so far, a MAHOOOSIVE thank you.  Let’s keep going, eh!!