(no subject)
Okay, well for those of you who don't know, I have had a headache since February. It broke for a couple of weeks and then came back and it has not let up since. I had surgery in May for chiari malformation. Basically, they opened up more room between my brain and my spinal cord because my brain was squishing out the bottom. Fun fun. They have hospitalized me twice trying different medications ranging from thorazine (not a road I will go down -ever- again), DHE (protocol the neurologists are trying out for constant headaches), and inapsine, that I had to be moved to a heart monitored bed. Nothing seemed to work. I was able to keep things back well enough though that I wasn't crying the whole time in front of the nurses (most of whom I worked with or went to school with).
So that is my life right now. I cannot work. Even if I don't take my medications, the time lapse and memory problems make me not the kind of nurse I would want taking care of my family. Let alone the pain, the frigging constant pain, and how much I cannot move my neck. I can't pick up my less than 30 pound 2 year old, let alone boost someone up in bed. If a patient began to fall, I couldn't catch them without serious injury to myself, if not the patient. I don't sleep well at night anymore, just look what time I am typing this... I take my kids outside during the day, heavily armed with both hat and sunglasses (light sucks). I try to make myself get up and play baseball with them, but after 2-3 pitches with a plastic ball, I'm done. That sucks. I can't even play with my children.
Every time I ride in a vehicle I try not to think what would happen if we got into a car accident. Not just the regular worry that you have when you first start driving and realize how fast things could go so wrong if someone looks away from the road for an instant, no. Now I have to worry about the graft in the lining of my brain shifting, causing a leak of spinal fluid. I have to worry about the part of my brain that was involved in the surgery: What would happen? Would everything be alright?
Then, everyday there are little painful reminders, besides the headache, that strike at my heart not my head. My youngest still uses a highchair and I cannot lift him in or out. My oldest son, Braeden, gets up frequently at night and even though he is half-asleep, he remembers well enough to change his request that I carry him back to his bed to that I walk with him back to his bed. My daughter and I went to most of her school skates last year. She definitely has noticed that I haven't taken her. Maybe next skate I will take her and just sit at the snack bar and read. She was really getting going last year on skates.
Anybody have any ideas, throw them out there, I'm just about to where I would try anything! Thanks for listening to me whine...
So that is my life right now. I cannot work. Even if I don't take my medications, the time lapse and memory problems make me not the kind of nurse I would want taking care of my family. Let alone the pain, the frigging constant pain, and how much I cannot move my neck. I can't pick up my less than 30 pound 2 year old, let alone boost someone up in bed. If a patient began to fall, I couldn't catch them without serious injury to myself, if not the patient. I don't sleep well at night anymore, just look what time I am typing this... I take my kids outside during the day, heavily armed with both hat and sunglasses (light sucks). I try to make myself get up and play baseball with them, but after 2-3 pitches with a plastic ball, I'm done. That sucks. I can't even play with my children.
Every time I ride in a vehicle I try not to think what would happen if we got into a car accident. Not just the regular worry that you have when you first start driving and realize how fast things could go so wrong if someone looks away from the road for an instant, no. Now I have to worry about the graft in the lining of my brain shifting, causing a leak of spinal fluid. I have to worry about the part of my brain that was involved in the surgery: What would happen? Would everything be alright?
Then, everyday there are little painful reminders, besides the headache, that strike at my heart not my head. My youngest still uses a highchair and I cannot lift him in or out. My oldest son, Braeden, gets up frequently at night and even though he is half-asleep, he remembers well enough to change his request that I carry him back to his bed to that I walk with him back to his bed. My daughter and I went to most of her school skates last year. She definitely has noticed that I haven't taken her. Maybe next skate I will take her and just sit at the snack bar and read. She was really getting going last year on skates.
Anybody have any ideas, throw them out there, I'm just about to where I would try anything! Thanks for listening to me whine...