One week Post Op,

I think it was almost right now when I came to  week ago after a craniotomy. Seems kind of impossible really. I thought I was prepared but there really were some things I had not accounted for.

That sudden fear that all the poop in the world will slide out from under your clothes while you change in the freezing pre op room. 

The small seed of panic when the first nine IV trials fail and now she is looking for an arterial line.  I actually felt sorry for her.  I have a perfectly good vein in the elbow that she did not want to use because it is on the right hand side and in the elbow it occludes and sets off alarms when it is attached to a pump of any kind.  It is a good reliable vein though.  And in the end she ended up calling in the head honcho from anesthesia do do the arterial line with an ultrasound.  I felt bad that she struggled for an hour and it hurt like hell and she still had to call for help.  I woke up, of course with the good vein in use, two arterials and a couple of other Iv's Sometimes the patient does know best.

For some reason I though I would go into the OR with a nice little antianxiety buzz going on.  Nope.  Due to the constant neuro assesments stone cold sober to the very end.  Thanks in no small part to the very large strong  redheaded PA  called Shawn who sat on the gurney with me while the halo went on. When I woke up I remember saying something about my head hurting and he said, "We just closed your head up!  of course it hurts!"  I just thought I would be out for that part too.  He rode the gurney into the CT scan and hoped off and on so fast I could barely feel him move.  He held my hands under the blankets and was one of the first people I recognized after the surgery.

Sometime that first night in ICU my friends came in.  I remember knowing who they were but I could not recall their names and I could not see them.  Just a long tunnel with tiny faces at the end.

At some point the ER team came in and asked if I knew them.  I knew most of their names and was able to accurately place them around the table.Including the still embarassed anthesia resident. I remember being annoyed that one of them had said I was anxious...uerm......hello, your hands are in my skull.

That first night was just one long helacious scramble toward dawn. Again, I had assumed I would be pretty out of it, but no.  Neuro exams every 55 minutes leave little time for pain neds or rest.  I spent most of the night trying to figure out which way  the window near my bed was looking.  And I was anious for news.  Someome, Patick? Seumas? had told me that they got it all and it was benign, but I don't exactly remember when I learned that.  

In the morning the catheter came out and with it all the hair on my left thigh.  OW!  Why so much glue on the bag people!  oh and then the very sweet man who was trying to get all the telemetry wires off with out actually having to touch my body under the gown.  I found the last sticky yeasterday during my shower,  it was well hidden,

Then the real hospital adventure began...  My first non ICU room was shared with crazy pooping lady. Apparently she had some um.....constipation issues.  But then not.  Much sudden charging from bed towards the bathroom at the foot of my bed.  Tossed curtains....door slamming and lots of flushing followed by er....noise. For an hour or so we got to share curtain space, but by then a friend and PT at the hospital had seen my name and god us moved to a small but private room near the end of the hall.    ahhhh.......

One other thing I had not thought of was that others on the neurosurgeryfloor might be somewhat altered.  There was very impulsive lady with a bed alarm. " Mary Had a Little Lamb."  At high volume all day and night, any time she got out of bed unattended.  All. The. Time.  And then her grown daughter came to visit and they wandered the hall talking, loudly, to the framed harpseal painting. "Ar! Ar!  Mama!  Ar! Ar!  Talk to the seal Mama!  Ar! Ar!"   oy!  I was stunned to find an actual seal portrait when I left.  I was sure I was imaginging it.  Cute little fucker though.

The endless neuro function tests....follow my fingers wih your eyes.  Hold your arms out like you are crrying a pizza.  What is today's date? Naerdayme and DOB please.  Now while wlking down this corridor count backwrds by 7's starting at 60.  WTH?  I could not do that before you cut into my brain yesterday.  Yes.  Yesterday.

Then finally home. Visitors, lots of food a small but mighty birthday party.  Stuart Mclean on the podcast and the dog on my feet.

A tiny relentless Junco fearlessly tapping all the day at the window.  Trying to get some message across.

And a shower, the last of the hair and glue pulled from the halo marks.  And Unicorns, pooping and otherwise.
 My long suffering husband making sense of the steriod step down and the be wildering array of drugs.  Hours on the phone and in the pharmacy.  A veritble army of food delivererers, house cleaners, kid toters, shoppers and well wishers.

There were some pretty tense and scary moments up there. but all in all I'll do.  I can see, and taste and walk just fine.  My emotions seem relatively stable and I am not quite in constant pain.  Though I fear my writting has suffered.  Guess we will just have to wait and see which voice comes out now.