SO today is Thanksgiving. Wow, it cam up on me a LOT faster then I thought. I told myself and everyone that I wanted to be at about 80% by Thanksgiving. And here I am probably closer to 50-60% at the most. But I am doing the best I can.
SO I start thinking about things at Thanksgiving, like what i did last year and of course what I am thankful for.
Last years Big Thanks was having Ben in my life and part of my family for our First thanksgiving together. And the super big thanks was that I was able to get insurance.
I am even more thankful for those 2 particular things this year then I was last year. After breaking my foot badly in February and going through the LONG recovery then almost RIGHT after that finding the AVM and going through that process to end with having double Brain surgery in October..Whew!
If I wasn't fortunate enough to have insurance, NON of this would have happened. I never would have been able to afford my new psychiatrist, not to mention a head MRI. SO the AVM never would have been found, and It probably would have ruptured.
The surgeon said the AVM was bigger then they expected when they went in, which leads me to believe it WAS getting bigger, as well as would probably going to burst.
I am so thankful.
I made it through something REALLY hard, a hard thing that not everyone has to go through. I had my wonderful supportive Family and Boyfriend by my side the WHOLE time. I was even able to get my Dad on an airplane to come down to Florida to help and support me.
Though on the friend front I was disappointed, very heavily. I had one friend that never has and never will leave my side. My Buddy Lisa. She has known me since High school, and we became friends when we were about 19. And have been ever since. We have been through it all together, and our friendship and Bond has never been shaken or broken. Never. I am thankful for her. For all she does for me, and all she means to me.
I am just thankful in general to be alive, to have survived, but more then survived, came through with flying colors, even giving the hard parts.
So on this thanksgiving when we are saying grace and what we are thankful for, this will be my list.
Health, Friendship, True Love, and Happiness....
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Brain Surgery, I survived.
Well I am back home. I am about 3 weeks give or take recovered form my double brain surgery, and boy oh boy what an experience. I figured I had better write it down before my memroy takes it all away.
SO the morning of the 21st I get to the hospital at 6:30am for my 8:30am embolization. The embolization is where the neuroradiologist injects this sort of glue into the arteries and veins of the AVM plugging them up so that when the neurosurgeon goes in, there is less bleeding and an easier removal.
So anyway, I didn't actually get taken back to surgery until 1:00pm my Doctor was on call and had 2 emergencies. So I went through the 3 hour procedure and did great, woke up fine but with a killer headache. And some interesting information. The Onix (the stuff they use to glue it with) makes you smell. It goes through your pours, glands, and breath, they say it;s kinda like garlic, but everyone said it smelled like something different. Either way it sucked. Not only did I have my head all glued up, but then I smelled bad. So recovering form that sucked, it hurt REALLY bad. Like worse then a sinus headache, there was just so much pressure. It as a little funny because when I came to form the anesthesia all I wanted was a chocolate bar, so that is what I was babbling about. I finally got some chocolate pudding and the second I took one bit I threw up. And didn't stop getting sick until they gave me meds to stop it. Let me tell you what. If anyone has ever thrown up when they have a headache you know how bad it hurts, this was like torture. It felt like fireworks were exploding in my head. So it sucked. Also because I couldn't keep anything down, I couldn't take the Vicodon, so I was on Fentenol every hour, so I basically got 45 minutes of sleep every hour all night. Not to mention the MRI at 2AM and the chest x-ray at 4AM. And the nurses fucking up.
Either way I made it through the night and they wheeled me off got the Craniotomy at 8:30am. I wasn't too scared though Ben just about made me cry as I was wheeled in. When I got in the operating room there were like 50 different people in there. They pushed something into one of my IVs hard and I freaked and started sobbing. The techs quieted everyone down and got me calmed down. The surgery lasted 7 hours. After it was done I felt pretty damn good. I was high as a kite of course, but I was hungry and eating with no problems, I was talking, and making everyone laugh. I felt like I was in the Big Land form Super Mario 3, and then I started dancing in bed and singing the Mario theme song. I couldn't really see after the surgery but I could sort of recognize shapes and things and I was in a good mood. It was hard for the next 2 days because of the IVs bad nurses, pain med problems and some other things. But I made it through. I went home Monday the 35th, 5 days after I entered the hospital. I had 25 Staples in my head, and some partial vision loss in my left upper peripheral of my left eye,but all in all I did well. My brain is still swollen and swelling so that causes problems but I am actually getting better every day. I did it, I made it, I am and always have been the ultimate survivor.
SO the morning of the 21st I get to the hospital at 6:30am for my 8:30am embolization. The embolization is where the neuroradiologist injects this sort of glue into the arteries and veins of the AVM plugging them up so that when the neurosurgeon goes in, there is less bleeding and an easier removal.
So anyway, I didn't actually get taken back to surgery until 1:00pm my Doctor was on call and had 2 emergencies. So I went through the 3 hour procedure and did great, woke up fine but with a killer headache. And some interesting information. The Onix (the stuff they use to glue it with) makes you smell. It goes through your pours, glands, and breath, they say it;s kinda like garlic, but everyone said it smelled like something different. Either way it sucked. Not only did I have my head all glued up, but then I smelled bad. So recovering form that sucked, it hurt REALLY bad. Like worse then a sinus headache, there was just so much pressure. It as a little funny because when I came to form the anesthesia all I wanted was a chocolate bar, so that is what I was babbling about. I finally got some chocolate pudding and the second I took one bit I threw up. And didn't stop getting sick until they gave me meds to stop it. Let me tell you what. If anyone has ever thrown up when they have a headache you know how bad it hurts, this was like torture. It felt like fireworks were exploding in my head. So it sucked. Also because I couldn't keep anything down, I couldn't take the Vicodon, so I was on Fentenol every hour, so I basically got 45 minutes of sleep every hour all night. Not to mention the MRI at 2AM and the chest x-ray at 4AM. And the nurses fucking up.
Either way I made it through the night and they wheeled me off got the Craniotomy at 8:30am. I wasn't too scared though Ben just about made me cry as I was wheeled in. When I got in the operating room there were like 50 different people in there. They pushed something into one of my IVs hard and I freaked and started sobbing. The techs quieted everyone down and got me calmed down. The surgery lasted 7 hours. After it was done I felt pretty damn good. I was high as a kite of course, but I was hungry and eating with no problems, I was talking, and making everyone laugh. I felt like I was in the Big Land form Super Mario 3, and then I started dancing in bed and singing the Mario theme song. I couldn't really see after the surgery but I could sort of recognize shapes and things and I was in a good mood. It was hard for the next 2 days because of the IVs bad nurses, pain med problems and some other things. But I made it through. I went home Monday the 35th, 5 days after I entered the hospital. I had 25 Staples in my head, and some partial vision loss in my left upper peripheral of my left eye,but all in all I did well. My brain is still swollen and swelling so that causes problems but I am actually getting better every day. I did it, I made it, I am and always have been the ultimate survivor.
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