Scariest Day Ever

This all started on Friday September 6th and ended up being a ROUGH few weeks. I feel like it really took me a year to FULLY recover from this whole ordeal. I ended up going to physical therapy for about 6 months after we determined that this all started with some nerves in my neck. I am writing about this almost two years later and don't remember/have blocked out a lot of the details, so I thought the best thing to do was to take exactly what I put up on Facebook while it was all happening.  I talk more about it in one of my excerpts, but I had just gotten home from my bootcamp class at the gym, was feeling fine, when all of a sudden, I had an excruciating headache, lost vision, left side of my body was completely numb, was throwing up etc. They really never found out a for sure diagnosis other than a severe migraine, but I have had migraines my whole life and have never had ANYTHING even remotely close to this.  Here's the gist of the events according to what I had posted on Facebook... 

Sept. 7th: Feeling grateful that on a whole, I am healthy, fit and active. I'm able to keep up with my crazy boys without a second thought. After a day like yesterday, I am reminded how much I take that for granted. I have never felt SO awful in my entire life... And yes, that's including 18 months of straight nausea and giving birth to two kids. Hopefully heading home from the hospital sometime today. A HUGE thank you to @sjmstelter you were a lifesaver... Probably literally smile emoticon

Sept. 7th: Still in the hospital... Hoping to get to go home this afternoon. I'm doing a bit better today. Had a horrible migraine that they were afraid was a stroke. Lost vision in my left eye. whole left side of my body went numb for hours, vomiting all day... All on top of the horrendous pain in my neck and head. So far the tests are coming back normal. They just did an MRI to check for a tear in the arteries of my neck, so I'm waiting to hear back from that. Thanks everyone!

This was a picture that I sent to Cameron on Friday the 6th, telling him how bad I felt and that I thought I needed him to come take me to the hospital. 

Sept. 11th: Round two in the ER... Think we've actually got it figured out this time. Cross your fingers I will NOT be back! 

Sept 12th: Thanks for the well wishes everyone... basically my head/neck pain from last week never got better, so I went back in yesterday. Had a great dr that wanted to get to the bottom of it and started by giving me some morphine! Yay... He then wanted to do a lumbar puncture(spinal tap) to rule out West Nile virus and meningitis. The spinal tap was normal. There were however, very small traces of a bleed that he said wouldn't have shown up on the mri and thats probably where the pain is coming from, But thats clearing up on its own. He sent me home with some vicadin and an appt with the neurologist on Friday morning. I appreciate everyone's concern! Will keep you posted!

Sept. 13th: Definitely starting to feel like a drug addict when the nurses have to look all up and down my arms for a place that hasn't had several iv's in it in the past week. After spending another quality day with the director of neurology at the hospital, my "official" diagnosis is a severe and lingering migraine that they are trying to get under control. I have to go back to the hospital up to five more days this coming week for infusions to hopefully blast out this stupid thing once and for all. The depressing thing is that the strong meds they need to give me mean I have to stop nursing Cody AND make me more nauseous than I already am. I'm super excited /: but I'll seriously do anything to not be in pain at this point...

Sept. 15th: it's been a long week for everyone... Cameron put the boys in the bath tonight and by the time he took Cody out and got him dressed, Grant had fallen asleep! Poor guy's schedule has been so off. Let's just say everyone was in bed by 6:45 tonight.

Sept. 16th: Feeling a bit like a preschooler today, sipping apple juice and nibbling on graham crackers, while covered in some warm blankets... The stronger set of iv meds they're giving me at the hospital today make me extra nauseous... Thus the preschooler affect smile emoticon



Sept. 18th: I was stabbed 14 times in arms/wrists/hands, stabbed 3 times in the spine, got at least 3 sweet bruises, and am now getting sent home with a large dose of morphine... All in all, a great evening smile emoticon or at least that's the positive spin the morphine is giving me at the moment (;

Basically, I had to come back to the ER because I was feeling worse and worse since the spinal tap. Cameron was sure that I had a spinal headache and that I needed a blood patch. I drove myself to the hospital at like 8pm thinking id be in and out fairly quickly. Cameron wanted to come, but I convinced him I was fine to go alone and i would be ok. They put an iv in me because I was so dehydrated and then they called anesthesia to come to the patch. The anesthesiologist placed the part in my spine and then needed to draw blood from my arm to put it in my spine to patch the leak, but he could NOT get enough blood because I was so dehydrated. He literally tried in fourteen different places, including my foot before the nurse suggested reversing the iv fluid and taking the blood from there, which is what they ultimately did. 

My battle wounds from the blown veins from trying to get the blood for the blood patch

Sept. 19th: Our day today... Feeling like I've been hit by a bus... BUT, I have the SWEETEST little guy filling my day with phrases like "I'm sorry you feel bad mom" or "I will help Cody mom, you just relax" or "I'll snuggle right with you till you feel better" or "you lay down and I will mop!" Love that boy! Both boys have been such troopers this week...

Sept. 20th: I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude right now. It is so hard to be far from family when you need help, but we have been MORE than taken care of these past two weeks, by some of the most wonderful people I know! It truly means the world to me, knowing that my boys have been in such good hands while I've been recuperating. My awesome friends have gone above and beyond to make sure we've had everything we've needed, especially while Cameron has been at school. I can't thank them enough! As soon as I'm back on my feet, I hope to be able to be as big of a blessing in the lives of those around me as I've had in my life recently.


Sept. 21st: I have a couple of boys who've been missing their mom. They've been ALL over me today... And I love it.

Like I said before, this really took a toll on our whole family and threw us for a loop for quite a while. I had residual headaches, neck aches and blurry vision for several months. I had to go to physical therapy to a neck specialist for about 6 months and that was what really started to help. I've been pretty good since the physical therapy, but still get extremely nervous if my neck starts to hurt like it did or I get a bad headache or whatever. Not sure I could survive that ordeal again!