Month: February 2014

My four-week checkup was greeted by the aftermath of a good old fashioned Nor’easter snow storm. Thankfully, it was an overnight storm and the roads weren’t too bad, so the hour or so drive was uneventful.

We met first with Ellen, one of the nurse practitioners at the practice who I had met while in the hospital. I barely remember her, but I do. I may have been in bad shape when she stopped by. LOL She was great though and answered some of the physical questions I had about where things were placed as far as the bone flap that was removed and how things were effected by the incision. She said the incision itself looked great.

However, as she was describing things, she did a lot of poking and prodding on my head and it was uncomfortable. My head hasn’t been touched that much since the day of the surgery I think, so I certainly felt that later in the day.

Then we met with Dr. Ecker and he was pleased with how the surgery went and how the incision looked. There were no issues with the procedure and he indicated if he could script a general clipping procedure that was easy and basic, mine would have been it. The aneurysm presented in an easily accessible way for the clipping and he was able to position the clipping in an optimal position. Glad I was able to accommodate! 🙂

He was still stumped as to why I had such horrible back pain afterwards though. At this point, I don’t care about the cause because it’s gone, but it sure was awful while it was happening.

Unfortunately, he did not have the images downloaded of the procedure to show me. Dave and I were very disappointed with that. He did show me another patient’s scans of the hardware used to secure the bone fragment in place and the general size of the bone flap.

Not that I had any plans on Tuesday, but it was a bust anyway. Monday wiped me out. Laid on the couch all day. I did make a sudo-supper, then could no longer function so I went to bed at 5:30 p.m.

Thankfully, I did fall asleep and had a good five hour nap…then was up for a few hours around midnite. Sleep settled in though, so it was a good night’s rest.

I’m still sleeping only on my right side. It’s not that the left side of my head or face hurts when I rest on it, but there is some discomfort and it still just doesn’t feel “good”. When I then turnover, I have to let my brain “settle”. LOL I don’t expect anyone other than another survivor to understand what that means.

Today (Wed) was better and I had more energy. I ate a very early breakfast, did 15-20 minutes of walking inside then rested. Saw the bird feeders were empty so Dave allowed me to go outside by myself to fill them. That took more out of me than I was expecting. Damn…..I can do one thing, but not two apparently?

My 53 stitches feel like they’re almost dissolved, or whatever they’re supposed to do. The incision is smoother now and the hair is growing back slowly but surely. A tad itchy at times, but not too bad. There are feelings and sensations on my forehead and scalp that are just still so freaky. There is a lot of numbness still. Dave kissed the back of my head before he left the house the other day and even though I knew he did it, I couldn’t feel it. LOL Just odd.

It’s fun to have the Olympics to watch too, because daytime television sucks! 🙂

I did sleep all night and felt relatively good upon waking up this morning. My mission this week is to get out of the house, in the car and to a different location on Monday and Wednesday. Every other day with Friday being my 4-week checkup with the doctor.

I informed Dave I’d like him to drive me into the Eddie Bauer outlet to exchange the jeans I purchased online prior to my surgery. And almost immediately after I told him that, I got an ocular migraine.

Migraines aren’t new to me. I got my first one in 1976 on a school field trip and had them, sometime’s severly, until I had my brain aneurysm rupture in 2006. Oddly, since then, I only get ocular migraines, which are far less dibilitating then the aura migraines that I used to get, and only effect my eyesight…hence the ocular name.

My versions of the ocular migraines aren’t painful at all, I just have trouble seeing, usually out of my right eye, for about 30 minutes, then my eyesight comes back. Although there is no pain, I don’t exactly feel good the rest of the day after I get one. So I informed Dave we MIGHT not be going and I’d let him know.

Once my eyesight came back, I ate lunch, took a Tylenol and off we went in to town. The jarring of the rough roads still bothered me, but it wasn’t as sunny out today so that was nice. I had to try on a couple of pairs of the jeans before the exchange and that pooped me out, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m familiar with the store, so I knew where things were, which helped.

When we got back I went back to my at-home project of straightening up and organizing my home office. Organized a lot of papers, piles and junk. Felt good to continue that and it’s a good sit-down activity I can do and not get too overly tired…although I did get too tired and needed to rest.

I have been able to stifle a couple of sneezes. I’ve been very nervous about sneezing since my surgery because after my rupture in 2006, sneezing was extremely painful on my head. Well, I let a couple of sneezes through yesterday and was pleasantly surprised, and please they did NOT hurt my head at all. Thank you!

Another item I keep forgetting to blog about is how our cats have reacted to my recovery.
#1: Firstly, they never bothered the side of my head where the incision is and never even got very close to it which was a surprise because they’re both big on head butting and love to rub their faces on your face. Lexie can be pretty rough actually and uses her teeth sometimes, but she was great.
#2: They both stayed very close to me when I got home. Both sleeping with me throughout the day and night. Lexie sleeping at my shoulder or at my feet and Smokey cuddling up where ever Lexie wasn’t. They stuck quite close by though.
#3: Dave was tasked with feeding the cats during the first week or so of my recovery mostly because there was a flight of stairs involved and bending over. He indicated during the first week the cats did not eat much at all and once I started getting up more and moving around they got back to normal eating.

I already knew this, but I think it’s safe to say they knew something wasn’t right with Mommy and they were concerned and wanted to stick close by in case I needed them….and I did! 🙂