Out of the fire, into the firey depths of hell
You know that feeling when you get hit by a bus at a high rate of speed, and then the bus driver backs up and parks on your head, and then goes to lunch. I didn’t either until today. Going to a bi-lateral treatment is like going from little league to the world series. It’s a whole new ballgame.
When I woke up in Recovery, I was lost. The nurse, after a few minutes of me drifting in and out of sleep, said “Hi, you’re in recovery.” It took it a few seconds to register. “Recovery? I don’t remember going in for the treatment.” I really didn’t. After a while, I did remember some sort of landmark moments from pre-treatment. I remembered that neither my doc, nor the other doc who had treated me, had done my treatment. I remembered talking to the anesthesiologist with the accent, and discussing meds mix. But it all took a while to come back. My memory, nonetheless, is very sketchy over a sort of indefinable period of time. Indefinable because the time period seems inconsistent. Overall, the blurry part covers the last day or two, but some of that time is still clear, and other parts aren’t.
The headache, which has to be the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life, didn’t take as long as the memory to manifest. Because there is now stimulus being applied to both sides of my head, both sides of my jaw were really stiff. But the real headache was a stabbing pain in each temple. I guess my pain was apparent to the nurse. She had 4mg of morphine in the IV before I asked for it. Today, they pre-medicated (pre-anesthesia in the OR) with Fentanyl and Toradol. Then lydicane and etomidate. I guess it worked.
Before I was out of recovery, I had had 10mg of morphine. The pain was better, but not gone, but I wanted out of there worse than I wanted the rest of the pain to go away, and I knew more pain meds meant a longer stay. By the time I got to recovery 2, I was nauseous from the morphine. Take the bad with the good, I guess. The nurse gave me something to ease the nausea. After what seemed like hours, I got to get dressed and go home.
The seizure, as is obvious from the description above, was a whopper. Peripheral was 34 seconds, and the EEG was 64. The doc’s notes said that it was as good a seizure as could be hoped for. Nice even rhythm and then a very solid cessation. My Beck score today was better, 32. I’m totally wiped out tonight, even after laying down for almost 2 hours after getting home. The morphine has worn off and the headache is coming back in a hurry. The doc gave me a small script for oxycodone, which I thought was unnecessary at the time, but I’m very happy to have now. My calves are getting sore, like from earlier treatments. Tomorrow morning should be very interesting. I keep expecting to get hungry, since I haven’t eaten since 8:00 pm last night (its 5:30 pm now.) Time to deal with this headache and go to bed. Not looking forward to Friday’s torture.
When I woke up in Recovery, I was lost. The nurse, after a few minutes of me drifting in and out of sleep, said “Hi, you’re in recovery.” It took it a few seconds to register. “Recovery? I don’t remember going in for the treatment.” I really didn’t. After a while, I did remember some sort of landmark moments from pre-treatment. I remembered that neither my doc, nor the other doc who had treated me, had done my treatment. I remembered talking to the anesthesiologist with the accent, and discussing meds mix. But it all took a while to come back. My memory, nonetheless, is very sketchy over a sort of indefinable period of time. Indefinable because the time period seems inconsistent. Overall, the blurry part covers the last day or two, but some of that time is still clear, and other parts aren’t.
The headache, which has to be the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life, didn’t take as long as the memory to manifest. Because there is now stimulus being applied to both sides of my head, both sides of my jaw were really stiff. But the real headache was a stabbing pain in each temple. I guess my pain was apparent to the nurse. She had 4mg of morphine in the IV before I asked for it. Today, they pre-medicated (pre-anesthesia in the OR) with Fentanyl and Toradol. Then lydicane and etomidate. I guess it worked.
Before I was out of recovery, I had had 10mg of morphine. The pain was better, but not gone, but I wanted out of there worse than I wanted the rest of the pain to go away, and I knew more pain meds meant a longer stay. By the time I got to recovery 2, I was nauseous from the morphine. Take the bad with the good, I guess. The nurse gave me something to ease the nausea. After what seemed like hours, I got to get dressed and go home.
The seizure, as is obvious from the description above, was a whopper. Peripheral was 34 seconds, and the EEG was 64. The doc’s notes said that it was as good a seizure as could be hoped for. Nice even rhythm and then a very solid cessation. My Beck score today was better, 32. I’m totally wiped out tonight, even after laying down for almost 2 hours after getting home. The morphine has worn off and the headache is coming back in a hurry. The doc gave me a small script for oxycodone, which I thought was unnecessary at the time, but I’m very happy to have now. My calves are getting sore, like from earlier treatments. Tomorrow morning should be very interesting. I keep expecting to get hungry, since I haven’t eaten since 8:00 pm last night (its 5:30 pm now.) Time to deal with this headache and go to bed. Not looking forward to Friday’s torture.
posted by DeMental at 4:38 PM
2 Comments:
Hang in there...I hope the bi-lateral works like you want it to. I am thinking of you and the family everyday. Melissa is a strong woman, you are lucky to have her and btw, Happy Anniversary, late. I hope the headached has receded some today. I look forward to hearing from you again. Take care of yourself and good luck.
I am finally catching up with you, Mike. Reading through everything... my own issues have caused me to not want to read anything about depression, but I am back again...
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