Recovering.

I am back. The surgery was…okay I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty upset when I first got to the surgery center because I thought this was going to be like my last surgery and I would just be put under IV sedation, but then they told me they were going to have to actually cut me open so I would need to be intubated. YUCK! I was in tears because, well I’ve been in surgeries and seen people intubated and let me tell you it’s gross and the anestheiologists are really rough! I just couldn’t imagine a machine breathing for me. It just seemed too invasive! Plus my sister told me that she once woke up at the end of surgery while they were taking out the tube and she said it was horrible! So those were my fears before we even started.

Of course they give you the calming drugs right away and the next thing I knew I was waking up in post op. I felt good when I woke up. I wasn’t nauseous and had a some pain but it was bearable. Then they gave me Percocet and I knew Vicodin makes me sick but I was hoping Percocet wouldn’t….but it did. I was so sick I was dry heaving and trying not to rip out my stitches. SOOOOOO horrible…..that is when you think you really would like to die now. They tried to send me home like that but I would have none of that! I told them to hook me back up to an IV and start some Zofran PRONTO! They complied and within 5 min. I felt better. “WAY TO STICK UP FOR YOURSELF”, I thought!

I made it home okay and started the healing process, only to discover when I sat up I had a headache that got worse and worse to where I couldn’t stand it and then I’d lay back down and instantly it would go away. I knew immediately it was a spinal headache and I knew to lay flat and most likely it would heal on its own. So I did. I layed. I layed and layed all day Monday, all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday…and then I was done. I called in and they said I’d need another MRI to confirm the spinal leak before they could do anything. So my mother in law drove a very unhappy and sick DaNelle all the way to Phoenix to get another MRI and then to the surgeons. Unfortunately the MRI showed NO SPINAL LEAK! “WTFreak!” I thought! I layed at the surgeons office with 3 of them debating what to do. I had all the symptoms of a spinal leak, but the MRI looks fine. What to do, what to do. Finally I said I don’t care just treat it like a spinal headache and we’ll do something else if that doesn’t work. So I was taken over to the surgery center where they inserted a needle all the way to the disk again and injected about 20 cc of my own blood. It was painful. I told them I think that was a trick of theirs because my brain didn’t know which pain to focus on. I kept thinking, “OUCH my back!, OUCH my arm, OUCH my back!” They also wanted to inject through not only the side, but through my TAILBONE! (YIKES) but lucky for me the blood dispersed perfectly and they could stop after the first injection.

So after all was done I was wheeled into post op and we all held our breaths to see if my headache returned. They slowly raised me up a couple inches at a time and gave me yummy apply juice……and NNOOOOO HEADACHE!!! AH sweet relief! So I headed home again to recover from the procedure. It took me a couple days to recover from that and here I am. I’ve had a rough week and I’m glad it’s over. It’s nice to be able to eat sitting up again and love on my kids. It’s nice to be in RECOVERY.