spina bifida

And he treats a whole manner of things from trauma to acquired conditions in neurosurgery.

And he's here to demystify one of our shared conditions, spina bifida, and also talk a little bit about hydrocephalus because as many of you, myself included, who have just taken the FRCS Paeds know that every once in a while there's a question about a shunt that we don't know anything about.

So hopefully by the end of this, we'll know a little bit more.

Welcome, Michael.

...

I think probably the best thing to do is to jump right in and talk about our shared patient.

I'm sure many of you have been to spina bifida clinic, where we have our neurosurgery colleagues, ourselves as pediatric surgeons dealing with the bladder and the bowel, and our orthopedic colleagues to name a few.

But I think from a neurosurgery perspective, it'll be interesting to have a bit of background about the condition.

Typically developing and her little girl, there was a different conversation.

I suppose it was discovered that she had a life limiting diagnosis, spina bifida.

So very quickly things changed for Megan and her husband.

And conversations started with consultants, not as quickly as they would like, but consultants.

And I suppose then we just talk about life from there so being in the hospital with your baby who passed and her brother was in NICU I have to say Megan is so articulate and her language is I learnt a lot from the language that she uses I don't want to say too much because I think Megan did such a good job of sharing her story the way that she did I do want to mention that we had a conversation after the recording and Megan mentioned that you know, people who, and parents and children who have, who are part of receiving a life limiting condition are such heroes and warriors, especially in a country that isn't fantastic at giving people the support they need and making it so difficult.

It is so difficult for people to get the care and the support they need for their children.

Megan also shared with me that she Had they not received the diagnosis during the pregnancy of spina bifida with Selkie, then they would have fought tooth and nail to give her the best life possible.

And I think that is obvious throughout the episode anyway, the love that they had and have for their daughter.

They just need to not get annihilated with those voters in the way that they used to.

So you can make the case, again, if you look at a Josh Turek in Iowa, there's nothing about him inherently that makes you say, "Boy, they nominated..." Right? They didn't nominate Mamdani in Iowa, okay? They nominated a guy who is a Paralympian champion, has spina bifida, who's in a wheelchair, who was elected from a pretty conservative part of the state.

Now, look, Republicans have a very good candidate, too, in Ashley Hinson, who's been in the House for a couple of terms.

But that is the kind of profile that should work.

[upbeat music] I was born an underdog.

Twenty-one surgeries by the age of 12.

Spina bifida, caused by my dad's exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

A kid wearing Goodwill hand-me-downs with the wrong color lunch ticket, but I never doubted my right to the American dream.

That's a near, you know, that with your book and all the proceeds go to the spine and bifida.

Spina bifida Jacksonville.

Right.

Our granddaughter was born spina bifida.

She's 26 years old.

She's had about 30 operations.

And it's trouble coordinating all doctors and surgical teams at one

time.

Fans, we want to bring your attention to something that's a worthy cause coming up this next Sunday.

It's Spina Bifida Day, and it's in Pensacola, New Jersey, at Cooper River Park.

A...

Spina Bifida, of course, a devastating birth defect on children.

Gary Maddox and Mike Schmidt will be over there along with a lot of other athletes.

They're going to walk Mike Schmidt here intentionally to load the bases.

On that Spina Bifida day, it's in Cooper River Park in Pensauk in New Jersey.

Mike Schmidt, Gary Maddox will be there.

We don't have the gestational diabetes test for like months and months and months.

Spina bifida.

don't know her.

So that's exciting.

My vertebra didn't close.

Yeah, a spina bifida.

spina bifida.

I was

lucky to have a very good skin over the open vertebra.

Septic.

Spina bifida.

Strep throat.

Strong defenses.

So my father died when I was in my teens.

And my younger brother was former Spina Bifida.

So the family's focus was often on him.

So I just do my own thing.