Mow-caution graphic medical stuffs included with needles
My life just keeps getting better and better. I am now stuck in Sierra Vista, for those of you who don't know what that is it is the small town that I grew up in, for a while more. I have been here since Spring Break. Yes I said that right I have missed three weeks of school. Let me tell you the whole fiasco. Matt and I came down here the Wednesday of Spring Break to visit my family since we had agreed to visit my parents once a month and to see how my mother has been doing after her latest surgery. She's doing great. Well it snows on Friday so we can't leave. The next day I start throwing up and don't stop for 48 hours. I go to the hospital to get some fluids pumped into me. I find out I have a urinary tract infection. I get put on anti-biotics for three days and am not concious for longer than a few hours a day during that. Once that is finished I come to and realize I am seeing double and have dark spots in my vision. We purchase an eye patch and I became the Dread Butterfly Pirate Ninja Alex. That Friday, two days past a week since coming down and a week since the planned leaving time for those keeping track, I go see an opthomologist figuring that the difference in focal lengths of my eyes had finally reached a point where I need glasses, one of my eyes is far sighted and the other isn't. Nope. My optic nerves, both of them, are swollen, later I find out this means the pressure inside my head is too high, maybe that's why I can't remember shit. I arrange for an appointment the next Thursday to see a neurologist for a diagnosis. That night I get worse and Matt convinces me to go to the ER once more. My CT came back normal, there were four heart attacks, three kids with dislocated shoulders, one, we suspect, from an abusive father, and the usual sissies thinking they're sick enough to qualify for the ER like one guy who got some dust in his eye, no joke. There is one doctor there and I get seen at about 3 in the morning after getting there at like 10:30pm. They decide to try a spinal tap to test for meningitis and other infection buggies. They can't get it in. In fact it took 5 sticks to get my IV in. I fall asleep as they start, and Matt being the brave one he is leaves the area. They can't get shit. They stick my poor back 12 times between anisthetic and attempts. They want to do it under what is called floroscope (probably misspelled), which is kind of like a constant x-ray projected onto a TV for the doc to get the needle into the spinal column. The machine is broken. I get sent home at about 430am. I got to go to the hospital and pay a lot of money to get poked a bunch with needles and a CT. Great. I am able to get the neurologist appointment moved up to Tuesday and we go see him in Tucson. He explains that my intercranial pressure is too high and that is why my vision is funky. He orders a MRI without and with contrast as well as a spinal tap under floroscope. We manage to get them both scheduled for Thursday. We go back up to Tucson and I get the MRI done which is painless. It requires an IV but the nurse I had was amazing and stuck me only once, I can't remember the last time that happened. My Dad, Matt, and I go to the mall and hang out until I am due for the tap. This was the fun one. I got a local anesthetic so I couldn't feel the needle go in but I sure could feel it squirming around in my back and hitting my bones. A couple of times he hit the nerves for across my pelvis and down my right leg. So that hurt. They get it in and take the pressure reading 36 cm + 6 cm needle (3.5" needle for those of you wondering) which means 42 cm. The normal is about 18. They take some fluid to test for baddies and let me go. OH MY GOD HOW MY BACK HURT!!!!!!!! I was laying down for three days from that one. Saw the neurologist on Tuesday following (we're up to 2.5 weeks since I was supposed to leave and almost three since coming down) and found out I don't having anything too serious only pseudotumor cerebri. Which means that I have increased intercrannial pressure for no apparant reason and they aren't totally sure what causes it but risk factors are female (check), unstable hormones such as caused by birth control or irregular cycles (check either way), and overweitght (check but working on it). Great. I have been on a diahretic, which means I have to pee a lot. I mean a lot! This should fix it in anywhere from 3 weeks to six months. Matt and I have been stuck here since. I am finally not seeing double but am still easily tired, have my dark spots and blurry spots, but they have shrunk, and am dizzy. I guess my headaches in the past few months haven't been my allergies and sinuses at all but an increase in intercranial pressure. There is no telling how much longer Matt and I will be down here since I am the licensed driver between the two of us and I can't drive the distance home. I am starting to be able to drive around town down here and do a few things a day without being totally exhausted. However the pseudo stuff can become chronic 10% of the time and it usually causes blindness at that point. Fun. So I feel really depressed also because Matt is so bored and I feel really bad for being the cause of sequestering him here in the middle of nowhere without a DDR machine in the county and without the funds for pads or game. He says it's okay and that my health is the most important thing but we have no income and it isn't going to be anytime soon that I can be back to work myself. I don't know what we're going to do. I want to go home so bad but it would be even worse on me there than here so I don't know. I am just so sick and tired of being tired and sick.