Amy Update!

I wanted to get on here and update about the past couple weeks. My surgery on the 14th went well and I was home the next day, Thursday the 15th. I was up and about and feeling great. But when I woke up on Thursday the 22nd my head was killing me. It got so bad that I asked to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital. There was just no way I could have sat up in the van for the 10-15 minute ride. The pain in my head, neck and upper shoulders was like nothing I've ever felt before....it was hell.


When I got to the hospital I was given some pain meds that helped control the unrelenting pain. I saw a few doctors and it was decided that I would receive a blood patch in my spine to hopefully repair any leak of CSF that might me going on. The procedure was done in my ER room and quite painful. They took some of my blood and put it in my epidural space. The doctor that did it was ready to send me home but I asked to stay overnight to see how I felt the next day. Needless to say the patch didn't work and what came next was a bunch of tests:

MRI of my lumbar spine, with & without contrast

MRI of my brain, with & without contrast

CT scan of my neck, base of my skull and upper shoulders.

X-ray of my chest

Countless blood tests

2 spinal taps

2 blood patches

10 day total inpatient

The first spinal was awful and they weren't able to get any fluid. That was really scary because I had no idea if that was good or bad, I was leaning towards bad. The reason they couldn't find fluid was because it was in the same spot where they did surgery and there was tons of scar tissue. So the next spinal was in my room and they tried another blood patch. They got fluid but the patch didn't help. The fluid showed some abnormal white blood cells so I was in isolation for about 24 hours. They had to rule out meningitis, which they did. If anything it would have been chemical.

My doctor wanted me to try and get up and walk with PT. I did okay with walking but my head started hurting so bad that I had to get back to bed ASAP. That evening my neurosurgeon calls and asked if I would be willing to do surgery to get a really good look and make repairs as needed. So he went in through my scar and was able to sew up the problem and my headaches were gone when I woke up in recovery!! Dr. Jobe said that he had never had a case like mine but had read about it. I told him that he will never forget me. I will see him in the morning and update soon after.

Love, Amy