Brain Surgery

 I'm a little slow in making this post.  I've been through an interesting experience over the last several weeks, which culminated (so far) with brain surgery the weekend before last.

The current best guess is that it relates to taking a tumble on an uneven patch of sidewalk several weeks ago.  There was no apparent head trauma, but I went into the ER at the time to check whether I'd had any abdominal trauma.  They sent me home and told me to take it easy.  As an aside, I'd ripped my hand to shreds, but that was just a flesh wound. 

Over the next several weeks I progressively lost coordination.  It became increasingly difficult to walk any distance. I felt find otherwise.  I could drive.  I could drink beer with my buddies.  No problem. 

The problem increased until I went to see my primary care provider on Wed., 3/27.  We puzzled over it and he ordered the usual suite of blood tests and queued me up for an MRI.  The blood tests came back with the expected results.  No indications there.  The MRI was still waiting on insurance approval. 

During the rest of the week, I became increasingly concerned and sent messages to my doctor to that effect.  It was weird and just wasn't right.  On Saturday, I went out for a beer with a buddy.  On the way home I came to a critical intersection.  I could go straight and go home or I could turn right and go to the ER.  I weighed whether or not my insurance company would be annoyed with me because I was sort of already on a course of diagnosis at least, but I wasn't getting the information soon enough. I had booked a trip to Mexico for the following weekend and needed to know what was going on.  I decided, "screw it!"  I'll cover it out-of-pocket if I have to.  This just isn't right!  I headed to the ER.

By coincidence, the ER doctor was the same one I'd had earlier.  He remembered the event and apologized for not checking my head at the time, but neither one of us that that was an issue.  These things happen.  We puzzled over the coordination issue for a while then he asked me to walk a line on the floor in the exam room.  I put my right foot on the line.  My left foot wouldn't budge.  He ordered a CT scan.  

The CT scan came back and showed a significant brain hemorrhage on the right side of my brain.  There isn't much room in my head as it turns out and it was pushing the right side of my brain into the left side. This pressure was causing the effects I was experiencing.  He consulted with the local neurosurgeon and she said she could fix it. 

I spent the night in hospital with full stroke-watch protocol and they took me into surgery first thing the next morning.  She drilled a hole in my head and inserted a tube.  Things began to improve almost immediately.  I drained blood mixed with some other fluid for the next couple of days when she came back, took the tube out, and sewed me up.  (BTW, the hospital staff in the ICU was excellent during this time).  They sent me home on Wednesday.

Currently, I'm doing pretty well though it sort of comes and goes.  It's never been nearly as bad as before the surgery.  I get my stitches out and my first post-op checkup on Monday.  Since the surgery, I haven't been able to drive and I'm allotted one beer a day.  We'll see where things stand on Monday.