November 2002 rediagnosed with a recurring tumor I am going to bring you through the whole fun thing
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Brain Tumor History And Other Rants
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Monday, March 28, 2005
3/28/05
So I guess we can pick up with the first operation. 3 shots of morphine that night alone. They brought me up to neuro-intensive care. There they hooked up the lines that were coming out of my head to a monitoring computer. You see that was why they did the 2 operations in the first place. The first operation they put this flat grid with wires that come out and little depth “fingers” that go into that area of the brain. One of these little fingers gave me the hemorrhage. The risk was 1% and I hit it. So I am hooked up by like 20 wires to a computer with a video camera watching me 24/7. This way they can collect data on me and do brain mapping on me (more on this later). The goal here is to find out where my seizure activity is coming from. Oh real quick back to Morphine, people do this by choice? What the hell is wrong with you? My first recollection of hallucinations was dreaming of soldier medals crushing in the woods. Now the book I was reading before I went in was Black Hawk Down, but they weren’t fighting in the woods. So morning comes and I am up early, my surgeon stopped by at 5am to see me. So here I am with 3 lines in my arms, a catheter, 20 wires out my head, a blood drainage line coming out the back right of my head. A blood pressure cuff that goes off on regular intervals. They are pumping me with drugs to fight swelling in my head (steroids). And anti-biotics. I call the steroids my crying juice, because they are the closest I am told a boy can get to PMS. So I finally get breakfast, now this is early Friday morning and I haven’t eaten Since Tuesday night. They put me on liquids, so juice and jello. But before I can finish this ½ cup of jello, my day nurse comes in and takes it away (reason #1 they don’t let you have a bedside gun). I get un hooked from the machine and brought down for another cat scan. Apparently there was some confusion from another surgeon thinking I might have to go back on the table on Friday (nobody from my team). So they scan me and now I go back to my room. Another woman came in to re-hook me up, and while she was doing so and before she could finish, my bad arm had another seizure, and I was bummed because we didn’t get the data. So I ask the nurse when is lunch? She tells me 2 pm and I am off the liquid diet now. So at like 230 now I am hungry. I call her asking when lunch is she says 1pm. So I am like I never got lunch and need food. So this nurse was not helping at all. Reminder I am in Neuro-intensive care, help a brother out. So my father gets a hold of someone from my surgical team who calls over and hands the nurse her head. You don’t mess with my surgeon’s patients, and then she came over and told her again. So at 330 our hero gets his lunch (yes you are thinking right dinner is like 530). But I tore that food up. Well someone helped me I only had one working paw at this time. Friday I was still in a fog from the drugs all day. I wasn’t in pain inasmuch uncomfortable with a big compression dressing squeezing my head like a juicer. So mom, dad, and Heather stayed with me all day to keep me company. I wasn’t the best entertainer, but it was great to have their support. The worst part of the stay, is when your guests leave and before someone shows up the next day. There are no meals to break up the night, you do a lot of thinking. Oh and get this one the first surgery made my voice very hoarse, so me of all people couldn’t be heard across a room. My ex would have paid for that. So dinner came uneventful, on time. But before that nurse left for the night, she came in and handed me a bunch of med’s that I had to bring into the hospital, and they were supposed to dispense back to me, so now I was responsible for one of my own medications. Needless to say that nurse never got me again and that night I had the head nurse.
More to come.
4:44 PM
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