straighttoplaid

I'm hooking on to this comment because the automoderator requires all top level comments to be questions...

My family has a bit of history with both the condition and the treatment. One of my uncles was born with hydrocephalus. 60+ years ago though it was considered a permanent condition and he would never have any mental development to speak of. He was literally a lump that ate and pooped with no hope of getting past that point.

The doctors told my grandfather that he had to think of his family and get my uncle into an institution. Since they were not wealthy they couldn't afford a private institution and had to wait until the state had a spot. During this time they asked if they'd be willing to take part in a medical experiment. I won't call it a medical trial because they didn't really consider it treatment, it was more to just see what happened (this was a very different time when it came to medical ethics...). The medical procedure was installing what they called a "shunt" to drain the fluid from his brain.

After a while my grandmother noticed something... He started tracking objects with his eyes. He started reacting to what was going on around him. The doctors originally said they were just confused or having wishful thinking but eventually they had to admit that they were right.

When the state called to say they had room for my uncle at an institution my grandfather told them it was no longer needed... My uncle was developing mentally.

I wish it had a completely happy ending but after a while he developed an infection because of how the shunt drained (they no longer use this method). The infection killed him. While it's sad, I'm glad to hear about people like the OP. It makes me think that what my uncle and grandparents went through meant something.

OP, I don't have a question but I'm so glad to hear that the treatment (though still difficult) is helping.

How do you earn money for things that you need to buy?

There are definitely drivers that don't even try. I've caught multiple that jump out of the truck, run up to the door with just the tag, and try to make it back to the truck before anyone noticed. My package was only delivered because I saw them out the window and ran to the door to stop them before they got back down the driveway.

I also had one driver mark something as delivered when it wasn't. He showed up at my place two days later out of uniform and without a truck, shoved the package in my hands, and ran when I asked him what happened.

This stuff hasn't happened as much in the last year (probably because less packages seem to require signatures now) but there used to be some really lousy drivers.

My wife and I only recently started getting into fermented vegetables. The hardest part is getting over the notion that food left out of the fridge will make you sick. Taking that first bite of homemade kimchi took a bit of bravery.

As an engineer, every once and a while you need that $100 bolt. I'm not saying that they aren't used sometimes when they don't need to be but in aerospace sometimes you need a very specific metal in a very specific size to make something work. Usually the problem is performance at temperature, either the normal metal gets too soft, it creeps over time, or it expands too much/too little. The requirement could even be something that has nothing to do with normal operation. There are parts in military and civilian aircraft that have to be literally set on fire for a certain period of time without failing. Normal bolts may work fine for all normal conditions but because of that fire requirement you can't use them.

This forces you to use bolts made of some crazy unobtanium that is an absolute pain to work rather than an off the shelf bolt.