One Month Later: Special Guest Blogger, Part 2
Last week, Dave and I were watching an old episode of CSI (I am ridiculously addicted to the CSI re-runs on Spike TV) and one of the agents had to ask a man who just received a kidney transplant if he would be willing to allow them to go back in so they could take a sample of the kidney (they needed it for evidence to find out if the man who donated it had been poisoned to death). I thought – oh my gawd, if someone told me right now that they needed to redo my operation, I would freak out. I can go through the experience once because I didn’t really know what to expect – I just took each experience one at a time and dealt with it. But now that I know what to expect, and what I will feel. . . nooooope, don’t think I would want to do that again! The patient on show also said the same thing.
That being said, going through this whole brain surgery thing for the first time, I must say that it has been soooo much better than I could have ever expected. It is hard to believe that it has been one month since my brain surgery on September 7. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support, love and concern everyone has shown me. And gawd what a difference it has made! From visiting me at the hospital (though granted I don’t remember much of those visits because of the pain medication/anesthesia wearing off/bouts of nausea – though I have enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories about my silly comments and antics!), . .to sending me flowers and cards. . . to keeping me company while at my dad’s place or berlin or andrea’s. . . I can’t imagine a better recovery period.
My main concern post-operation wasn’t the pain I might experience but rather having to deal with boredom. The doctor wanted me to lay low for at least two months, and to avoid any sort of physical strain. What the heck was I going to do with myself? When I was dealing with Guillain-Barre Syndrome two years ago, I just remember huge amounts of stir craziness and frustration, and time just seemed to draaaaaaaag. And now here it is four weeks later and I must say, there have only been a couple of moments where I have felt truly bored. And then Dave or a friend’s phone call or a couple of attention-loving kitties snapped me right out of that. And because I have felt so occupied time-wise, the pain and discomfort hasn’t bothered me as much as I thought it would. Well, that and the morphine pills my doctor prescribed!
:-)
So how am I feeling now? Honestly, it feels like someone whacked me on the back of my head with a baseball bat. I don’t have any headaches from it, but when I touch my head or lie down on it, it is really tender. My neck is still rather stiff, but I would say I have about 80% range of motion – though I am still tentative to turn my head too fast.
As for the symptoms that caused me to have the surgery in the first place: I haven’t had any leg cramps/spasms since the surgery (I was getting them two to three times a day – really wicked charley horse type of cramps) and have only had my feet cramp up a couple times. The first week after the surgery I would do something that normally made my legs cramp and my leg muscles would start to spasm out of habit and then half way through be like “wait, we don’t need to do this anymore. The signal to cramp is gone!” and then relax back to their normal state. These half-cramps were a very bizarre feeling!
Also before the surgery, I was having problems with pain sensation along the left side of my body. If you rubbed the side of my stomach or parts of my left leg, it felt like pins and needles. And even when no one was touching those parts, it felt like ants with hot feet were crawling all over me. Yuck! But now, it actually feels good to be touched! Before the surgery even hugs felt mildly uncomfortable, but now they feel great again! :-) Although I am still not ticklish on my left side and may never regain all my sensation, at least I feel comfortable in my own skin again.
Another problem was constant back pain – all across my shoulder blades and down my spine. Any sort of pressure to my back muscles caused mucho pain. While my muscles still feel stiff (probably more from me overcompensating and trying to protect my neck muscles) I am relatively pain free. Yeah!
And finally my main concern: fatigue. I felt like a battery that could only get 1/2 charged. Any sort of physical activity would tire me out way too much, and sometimes the fatigue would become so bad that my brain would literally shut down – like I was in a mental fog. Nowadays, I still need to rest quite a bit and take things slower, but I definitely don’t feel as incapacitated by the fatigue as I used to be. I’ll have a better sense of this in another month or so as my brain continues to repair itself.
So overall, yeah! The surgery was a success! I won’t know officially until I see my neurosurgeon and do another MRI in December – that will tell us if the fluid bubble in my spine (which had been causing most of these problems) has thinned/decreased in size. If there hasn’t been any change, then I might need to have a spinal surgery. But I am hopeful, based on what I have been experiencing so far, that that procedure won’t be necessary!
So again, thank you, thank, thank you for your tremendous amount of concern, love and support. I couldn’t have recovered this well without all of you! And a big smoochie to David for all of his care, concern, email updates, juggling of the caretaking of me/house closing in Ithaca/ life in general type of stuff. You’re the best, babe!
Read All of Avery's Posts | Read all the the posts about the surgery
