6 months since I last blogged... Yes, I am alive - although as most of you know, that was questionable over the past 6 months (hence my lack of blogging).
The last six months have been the most trying times of my life for me personally. I have never experienced such physical pain as I did during this time. I wish I could've blogged while I was sick, so that I could truly recount all that happened, but I was no where near able to do type, let alone do much of anything else. So I am going to try and recap as best as I can.
July 1st - wake up feeling fine and go to the gym to work out with my trainer. He worked me really hard and I came home feeling really sore.
July 2nd - man am I sore...Will killed me yesterday at the gym and now I have a headache coming on.
July 3rd - great...it's a migraine and I will never do that exercise again at the gym.
July 4th - worse migraine. Can hardly move. Yay for the long weekend in bed (sarcastic). Have to go to the dr to get some relief tomorrow.
July 5th - go see Dr. D, get meds, says I'll feel better by tomorrow.
July 6th (middle of the night) - wake up in the middle of the night, spiked a fever, screaming, non-coherent, vomitting and rushed to the ER by ambulance. I do not recall any of this, even to this day.
July 8th - finally wake up in the hospital to find out that I have viral meningitis. Yep, definitely not a migraine.
I remained in the hospital for 2 weeks, receiving treatment for the meningitis. I was sent home on antibiotics and heavy narcotics for the headache pain that did not go away.
While in the hospital, my nose started dripping like a faucet. I asked all my drs about it, but they just kept telling me it was allergies. I disagreed. I have lived with allergies for most of my life. This was not an allergy, but what can I do?
Many MANY doctor appointments - internal medicine, neurologists, family practice, pain specialists, infection disease doctors. Lots of different medications. So many, that I had to create a checklist to ensure I was taking them all and at the right time. At each visit, I told the dr about my nose issue. Still no concern. UNTIL, one visit, a new doctor asked me what was going on with my nose. I told her and she said - that's not an allergy, I think you have a CSF leak. You need to call your neurologist right now to have them test you.
CSF leak - cerebral spinal fluid - clear fluid that SHOULD be staying in your spinal column and brain....should NOT be dripping out of your nose. Now, this was about 3 months into the constant drippage.
Had yet another spinal tap done. CSF leak confirmed. Really? wow - that's shocking (again, insert sarcasm) Now what? See a neurosurgeon. One of my doctors recommended that I avoid the "local" hospitals and head to the medical center and gave me the name of one of the top neurosurgeons in the country. I figured, with my luck lately, that there was NO way that I would be able to get in to see him, but I thought I'd call anyway.
I spoke to Gail, a very sweet lady, who was immediately concerned with my well being and insisted that she talk to Dr. B right away about my situation and said she would call me back. Again, didn't think that I would hear from her anytime soon. Oh how I was wrong. She called me back about 20 minutes later (this was at 4pm) and asked if I could be in the dr's office tomorrow morning at 8:30. I said YES! At this point, I realized the seriousness of this problem. Dr. B said I needed to get in right away, and right away I did.
Dad drove me down to see Dr. B, as I was still unable to drive. As we were driving, I realized that I actually was feeling really good - the first day really, and as we walked into Dr. B's office, I realized I was no longer dripping. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? Great....I can't believe that after 3 months of solid dripping, it's just stopped. We tried all sorts of manuevers to get a sample out of my nose but it was completely dried up. Dr. B said "Well, I know I'm good, but I'm not that good!" ha! He gave me a tube to bring home and try and collect a sample, told me to drink water all weekend long, to the point that I feel like I could float away and it should start dripping again. Then I was scheduled to have another spinal tap/test run the following Monday to find out exactly where the leak was located.
The very next morning, I wake up not feeling very well again and I spiked a fever. By the afternoon, I became more disoriented and Michael was in constant communication with Dr. D. Finally, he said to take me back to the ER. I remember the ambulance arriving and putting me on the stretcher and the next thing I remember is waking up 2 days later in isolation at the hospital again. This time with bacterial meningitis.
Apparently, the dripping stopped because I was infected again. The bacterial meningitis infection was blocking the leak.
Once I removed from isolation (I believe it was 5 days), we contacted Dr. B downtown and requested for him to take my case and move me to Methodist, which he did. Oh how grateful I am. You want to talk about a top-notch machine running organization they have. The care was just so much better - like night and day. I had a team assigned just to my case, multiple doctors and interns and nurses and techs. Tests that could be run at the drop of a hat on multi-million dollar machines. I received excellent care there.
After one week at Methodist, the antibiotics had done their job and I was allowed to have the surgery performed. They discussed 2 options - one non-invasive and one very invasive. Of course, my jaw dropped when they told me what most people have to have done - cut my scalp open from ear to ear, flap the skin down and perform the surgery to repair the leak...or take some fat from my ear lobe and go into laproscopically up through my nose. Um, yes....non-invasive please. So, that's what we decided to do. Figured we should try this first and hope that it works. If not, then we would have to go back in and do the invasive way.
I wasn't really nervous about the surgery. I was just ready to be well again. They said it would be painful....that was an understatement. The worst part was the packing shoved up my nose. I literally couldn't breathe out of my nose for a few days and I can still remember the pain of those packing strips being pulled out of my nose - OUCH! (actually I'm pretty sure I said something else, but I won't repeat it here!) I stayed in the ICU for 2 weeks and then was finally transferred to a regular room until I could get my pain under control. A few days later, I was released with a bunch of medications and a hope that this would be the beginning of better days.
The doctors said that the odds of getting both viral and bacterial meningitis back to back is like 1 in a trillion. Guess I'm just special that way.
The headaches were absolutely debilitating. The best way I can describe them is a charlie horse in the brain that would last up to an hour at a time. I had one day where we tracked 14 of these. Not a good day. Days of vomitting, nausea, extreme pain, unable to walk without fainting, needing complete silence (hard to do when there is a little one that needs you and doesn't quite understand the meaning of "quiet")
I could go on and on about my experience with meningitis, but I really want to focus on what I learned during this time.
You never know when something can happen that is just going to rock your world. I woke up that morning feeling perfectly fine. I had no idea that I would be sick that afternoon and still be fighting with illness 6 months later. I wasn't prepared for that, but I'm not sure that you ever can be. So, you do what you can, with what you have and hope for the best. And you rely on the Lord Jesus like you've never done before.
We had people all over the world praying for my healing and those prayers were answered in incredible ways. People that I didn't even know, where praying for me, sending me notes and emails of encouragement and prayers, blessing in us ways that they didn't even know they were. So many friends came to our aid - wtih meals, errand running, play dates for Maggie, hospital visits, dropping everything that was going on in their lives to help us, texts, emails, phone calls, FB posts. We really saw the love of Jesus poured over us through our family and friends.
My parents were/are simply amazing. I know that we would not have made it through this without them. Even as a grown woman, there was nothing more comforting that having my own momma there for me, in those darkest hours. They made so many sacrifices on our behalf - including returning the day after leaving on a much needed vacation, just to be with me in the hospital. My mom and dad gave up so much for us....time, resources, vacations and showered us with their love and blessed us immeasureably. For all the grocery runs, pharmacy runs, trips to the doctors, taking Maggie to her therapy visits, cleaning our house, sitting with me at the hospital, and so much more, I thank you. Thank you seems like such a small thing to say for all that they have done. But I know that they'd do it again in a heartbeat because they love us that much.
My parents showed us the love of Christ in true form. And I am forever changed because of it.
Of course, I would be remiss to not give a huge shout out to my amazing husband! In the blink of an eye, his world was turned upside down...and as hard as it was, he got right in the groove of things and just took over. He instantly became momma and daddy to Maggie and keeper of our house and everything else. He quickly found out how much momma did :) but did a great job of taking care of everything. He had to learn a few things but proved to be a very good student :) The love I have for this man grew even more as I watched from afar - watching him take care of me and Maggie, our home and family. Michael continues to show me and Maggie the most amazing love and we couldn't ask for a better husband and daddy!
There were times that honestly, as much as I loved Michael and Maggie, I was ready to leave this earth. I remember praying one night that the Lord would just take me - I couldn't take the pain anymore. I was so worried about M&M and what would happen to them but I knew that God would provide for them and take care of them, as He always had. But every day, I was still here. That's when I knew that God wasn't finished with me yet.
When you go through something so traumatic as this, so many things are put into perspective. You realize what is truly important and what is not. Your focus changes. The motto of my blog reads:
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