Hello to all this fine Sunday morning,
I can say it is fine because in Houston it is already 70 and should be even higher by the afternoon. For all of you in the frozen areas, I will think about you and try to soak up sun vicariously for you!
As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I had developed a "goose egg" of a CSF leak at the sight of my incision about 2-3 weeks ago. The decision was made to just watch and wait and hope that the leaky spot would continue to heal and close off by itself. The leak was initially accompanied by rotten migraine type headaches, and I got a lot of good advice on how to handle those from some of you. They only lasted for about 5 days and then tapered off to a high level of annoying daily but somewhat tolerable amount of pain if I stayed on OTC for 24/7. After 2 weeks of that I had had enough. The goose egg continued to grow and I was tired of living on OTC pain meds. I saw my dr. and asked for
real pain medication. He agreed that the goose egg was indeed larger, prescribed Diamox and a pain med, but told me to hold off on the pain med until I had a lumbar puncture ASAP.
That was on Monday of this past week. I had the spinal done on Wed. morning and by lunchtime found myself back in the hospital because there were white blood cells in the spinal fluid- - -meningitis. As soon as I was in the room and safely ensconced in bed, I had my neurosurgeon, whom I had not seen since the surgery in Dec., my neurotologist, and a new dr,. an infectious disease specialist, all lined up to address my situation. They put me on IV therapy with the biggest, baddest antibiotics they had. Shoot first, ask questions later. The cultures needed to run for 48 hrs., so I stayed form Wed until Sat. The end result? Nothing showed up! It seems to be a sterile, or aseptic meningitis. They aren't really sure where this came from, except being related to the leak, and they really aren't sure what to do next. I am on IV therapy for a week, so my dining room is now the infirmary and after a visit from the home health care nurse, my patient husband and I are having bonding experiences over what connects to what and how do we prime the tubing and did I remember to swab the portals.
A bonus was that when they did the spinal tap, the goose egg completely drained, and we are praying fervently that the leak will be able to heal w/out the pressure building up behind it. Toward that end, I will have another tap done on Thurs.
I feel fine and am trying to be patient about IV treatments that take 2 1/2 hrs. twice daily. I am very grateful for pain free days and good medical care. God is giving me some one on one tutoring lessons on trust issues and He definitely has my attention this time around!!
I am in this for the long haul and finally learning to roll with the punches a little better. I still think that if I wanted more adventure in my life, sky diving might have been easier.
Priscilla
