Medical Science

I am constantly amazed by medical science. As far as I'm concerned, it's magic.

Yesterday, my doctor's office finally called back (after 3 hours!) and told me to go to the ER. JP took me, and after I registered, I waited for about 15 minutes until the triage nurse saw me. She took my blood pressure and temperature and asked me what was wrong. When I told her I had a spinal headache, she jumped up and told me to follow her. We went into an office where I repeated this to a doctor. He told me they would get an anesthesiologist to do a blood patch and that, in the meantime, they'd give me something for the pain. We grabbed JP, went into an exam room, and a nurse came in with a vicodin. I liked him immediately.

He proceeded to take me upstairs where I was put in a little room off of the surgical recovery room. Every other patient was unconscious, and the nurses and anesthesiologist seemed quite pleased to be able to interact with someone who wasn't. They apologized profusely because I needed to wait another 20 minutes before he could do the blood patch.

So, the blood patch. I had done my internet research, and I knew what they were going to do. In fact, on Saturday, I asked Tim and JP if they would do it for me. They both refused. You get a spinal headache because the hole where the needle for the spinal tap went in hasn't closed, and your spinal fluid is literally leaking into your body. Ick, huh? By taking some blood out of your arm and injecting it into the same site, the blood will clot and seal the hole.

I'm glad that JP and Tim didn't do it on Saturday for one reason - I never would have had the nerve to let them inject 20cc of blood. That is a LOT of blood. A whole lot more than I would have expected to fit in my spinal cavity. There were two anesthesiologists to do it - one to take the blood and pass it to the one that would inject it. I understand that maybe an anesthesiologist does not often take blood from someone, but I have huge veins and it is quite easy to get it. This guy stuck me 3 times before he got it, while I'm sitting there with a needle poking out of my spine. I was ready to do it myself at that point.

But after the blood patch and lying down for an hour, I had no headache. Success! The only problem is that my back really, really hurts now, from the pressure of having all that extra fluid. It's a fair trade, I think.

Just glad that it's over. Thanks to everyone that wished me well and offered help; I really appreciated it.