I had a appointment with my Nurse Practitioner this morning so I had to get up . . . . .early. Barry helped me get in the shower, I can do the rest myself, thank you, then he helped me get out. While I was drying off I ask him if he could set up my toothbrush. He said "Why, didn't you brush your teeth yesterday?" And I looked at him, puzzled and said "yeaaa . . ?" So you haven't done anything since then to dirty them, have you? Not knowing where this was going, I said "I went to sleep and woke up with morning breath," he said, "Ooh, I just thought you forgot to flush the toilet." I can imagine what my face looked like because he laughed! You don't hear Barry laugh as hard as he did, very often. It is a beautiful sound .. . .at my expense? He is the quiet but deadly type. That quiet humor that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Brat. :)
Back to the beginning - after the spinal tap, you have to go home and lay down for 24-48 hours to prevent spinal tap headaches. Yea, right. I have four children and a foreign exchange student. I had the spinal tap on Friday morning and I laid flat until Sunday morning, but we wanted to take Rami (my son from Tunisia) to the beach. So we reclined my seat, in the van, as far back as it would go and took off for the Marin Headlands. Now I've never had a migraine headache, which I understand is severe, but spinal tap headaches have to be worse! BUT we did it! I have pictures! ( Boy, I've got to get back to scrapbooking, I finished 1997 about a year ago, but haven't felt up to it since. I would love to see those beach pictures).
Monday morning, Barry's off to work, drive all four kids to school and then head to San Leandro to take Rami to the location that the students will be meeting every day for their school. Now mind you, I am in amazing pain. The only thing I can think about is - get everyone dropped off so I can go home and lay down flat. I drop Rami off and head home. The pain in my head is now so severe I am sure my head is going to blow and I will cause an accident. It is blinding pain and I still have to get on the freeway and drive home. I called Barry at work and ask him to stay on the phone with me until I got home because I wasn't sure I was going to make it. Obviuosly, I did. I also remember having a doctors appointment for Tyler that week and my head was still hurting so bad that when we got to Kaiser, Pediatrics mind you, and they took one look at me and ran us in to an examing room so I could lay down until Doctor came and Tyler's exam was over.
If the pain doesn't go away after a few days they suggest you go back in for a blood patch to help get rid of the pain. A blood patch? What is that? They shoot blood in your spine. Another needle in my spine!?! I don't think so! By Wednesday I couldn't take the pain any longer and nothing was helping . . so I agreed to a Blood Patch. I couldn't believe it, but the pain was phenomonal, so I had to! Barry took me to Alta Bates Thursday morning. I got in to one of those cute little gowns (not) and waited anxiously for the Doctor to basically come and give me anothe Spinal Tap. After forever, the Doctor came in and said "How are you?" I wanted to smack him! I looked at him in amazement and said, nicely, "how am I? I am in severe pain and waiting for you to give me another Spinal Tap, which has to be one of the most painful procedures you can do to me and they are done with me awake!! How do you think I am?" He looked at me and said "You don't need a blood patch. If you can move around like you just did, you are on the mend. Get dressed and go home. The headaches should be gone in another day or two . . . unless you want me to do a blood patch?" I couldn't get dressed fast enough.
It was either 1998 or 1999 that I was diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis - 11 or 12 years ago.
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