Back to the ER

So after I got home (on Tuesday) I was doing pretty well.  I mostly lounged around on the couch watching all the chaos going on around me.  ha ha.  I did well for a few days then on Friday night I got a call saying that I left my boots in my room at the hospital.  My mom and I went to get them Saturday morning.  Whenever I would move a lot I would hear dripping noises in my head.  It was weird.  But we got my boots, then my mom and I went to Smiths and later I think we went to Costco.  I was tired so the rest of the day I just lounged around.  By Sunday I was just laying on the couch and whenever I stood or sat up my head would pound.  So I would wait hours to bring myself to get up to go to the bathroom because it hurt my head.

On Monday it was  the same thing.  I pretty much stayed on the couch all day and finally after Rob put the kids to bed, I sat up because I had to go to the bathroom.  My head was really hurting now.  Rob had to accompany me to the bathroom.  My mom suggested we go in to the ER and we agreed we probably should since it was so bad.  Rob helped me into the car (I was in my pajamas-I think I had been wearing them all day) and we were off to the ER.  I had to lay back and keep my eyes closed the whole way because my head was just hurting so bad.  We got there and I managed to walk over to a wheelchair that was in the entryway of the ER and he wheeled me up to get checked in.  I was closing my eyes and had my hands on my head the whole time.  After they took our info, they told Rob to take me over to the waiting area where everyone else was waiting.  So he wheeled me over there and then said LOUDLY "Did they not hear the part about you having BRAIN SURGERY???".  I told him to quiet down and that I was sure they did hear that. I didn't see this because I kept my eyes closed, but he said that people in the waiting area would look over at him and he would glare at them and they would quickly look away.  LAter on he said he felt like he needed to apologize to them.  I told him it was fine and he didn't need to. After about 5 minutes of waiting they called me into a side room and took my vitals.  Right when I got in there, I felt like I was going to get sick.  They got me a barf bag just in time.  I'm so glad I didn't throw up out with everyone else staring at me.

They gave me a room right away and then they took me back for a CT scan.  I was glad it wasn't going to be an MRI because those take like 30 minutes and the CT scan takes about 5 minutes.  So they wheeled me over to get that done while Rob updated everyone (my mom mostly) on what was going on.  After my CT scan came back pretty normal looking they said they were going to release me to go home.  I mentioned to Rob that I wanted to stay in the bed until the pain medication they were going to give me kicked in.  The nurse kinda laughed when Rob relayed the message to the nurse.  She said that there were like 200 people in the waiting room waiting for a room so we pretty much needed to get out ASAP.  So we hurried and got dressed so they could discharge us and kept apologizing.  Then she felt bad for making us feel like they were too busy to take care of us so she helped walk us out to the car and move the car seats out of the way so I could lay down on the way home.  She also gave me like 4 of those cool barf bags and said she never goes anywhere without one.  ha ha.  She tried to bribe me with barf bags!  It pretty much worked because I was so glad to have those later.

The next day I laid around pretty much all day scared to move much because I was afraid my head was going to hurt if I did.  I had to use the bathroom, but I didn't want to get up.  I waited all day on the couch.  Then I had to go to my room to go to bed, so Rob and my dad came up with a clever way to make it so I didn't have to get up.  I just had to roll off the couch onto the sleeping bag. 

And I finally made it to the bathroom!  It still took me about 10 minutes to force myself to get up and go, but I finally did and then went to bed.

The next day was my follow up appointment with my neurosurgeon. I was worried about my head hurting really bad when I went to my appointment that afternoon so I took the strong medication all day.  I didn't have a headache which was good, but as my mom was driving me to my appt I started to feel sick.  I closed my eyes again all the way to the hospital.  We got there and I had my mom take a before picture of my staples...

Then we went in all the way on the top floor and just as I sat down in the waiting room I felt really sick.  Fortunately I had grabbed one of those barf bags that the ER nurse had given me because they didn't have any at the Dr. office.  So I just threw up in the waiting room because the bathroom was really far away.  My mom was nice enough to find me another barf bag and took the other one all the way down to the bathroom.  Then they called me back to see the Dr.  He came in and saw the barf bag in my hand and said "uh oh...that's not a good sign..."   I told him that the medicine was making me sick.  Then he talked to us and answered all my questions.  He said things were looking good and he told me to just take Ibuprofen and Tylenol alternating throughout the day.  He also prescribed me anti-nausea pills to take with the stronger medication just in case I needed to take it again.  Then pretty much right after he left, I threw up again right before the nurse came in to take my staples out.  She went on a hunt for another barf bag, but there weren't any.  So she gave me a little biohazard ziploc bag to use just in case I needed it.  Then she took the staples and and to my surprise it didn't hurt at all.  She let me keep the staples and tools she used to take them out to show the kids.  On the way home I threw up one more time.  Then I was done.  :)

Here is an after shot.  Kinda gross with all the dried blood still in there, but this is what it looked like.  

We went home and the next few days were great.  I was up and moving around more than the past few days.  I was liking this new Tylenol and Ibuprofen routine.  I even went to church for sacrament meeting that Sunday.  I had my mom take a family picture since I was up and dressed for the day:

It felt good to get out of the house for just a little bit.  After I got home, I took a nap and mostly laid around for the rest of the day.  I kept up on my pain medication though.  I slept well that night. 

I have to add that this whole time Rob was getting up with Finley in the middle of the night and feeding her so I could rest.  He was amazing.  And then my mom would get up with her if she woke up early in the morning.  They had shifts.  Rob did the middle of the night and my mom would do pretty  much anything past 4:00 am.  And I just slept.  Or tried to.  I felt bad not helping.  But they made a great team and gave me lots of opportunities to rest.  Thank you!

Then on Monday things took a turn for the worse....To be continued