I want to thank my Lord for sending His angels to look after me during my absence from my blog. I would not be here if it hadn't been for His protection.
Thank you to all who have been praying for me, thinking about me and checking up on me it has been a long 5 months. I will not bore you with all the details but will share briefly as I can what has been going on.
I left you hanging in July with a pending surgery in August. I am truly sorry for not updating since then but as you read you will know why.
August: I went in to have my stimulator adjusted, which was supposed to be a 15 min. procedure. Well they ended up replacing the wires a 2 hr surgery. Recovery was slow and had to spend most of my days in bed. When I went to have the staples removed 2 weeks later I was informed based on my urine journals and test results I would need to have the Stimulator removed totally. Surgery to be scheduled later. Also a biopsy of my muscle needed to be done per my Neurologist.
September: I needed another breast surgery - I was leaking blood for 2 months. Surgery was on the 17th. Much was removed - results came back as 3 ducts were blocked and 1 had ruptured. More recuperation.
Between all this and everything else my computer decided to crash everyday - a friend of mine took it and fixed it - my computer was gone from Oct. 1 to the 20th.
October: I scheduled to have the bladder stimulator removed on Oct. 20th. A simple procedure, go in and go home in an hour right. Nope, the Neurologist said my bladder Dr. could do my muscle biopsy through the butt muscle. So about 2 hrs later I was finally sent to recovery to wait another 2 hrs. I finally got home as the numbing medications were wearing off. Yes I was totally awake - because I was on my stomach for the whole thing. They had to put a drain in so fluid would not back up.
The next 2 weeks after this surgery - I spent in and out of ER's, urgent care, the doctors office and had a friend come down 2 times a day and change my dressings. I could not do this because of the location and the fact they sewed the drain tube in place. At one point I even had to go in to have my drained pulled and another put in and at that time they also they did 5 needle aspirations to help with the fluid build up.
During all this 3 Drs. felt that much of my problems (nerve wise) is possibly related to MS, more tests needed to be done to rule this out.
Muscle Biopsy in the preliminary report the finds were: Myoadenylate Deaminase Deficiency - a Metabolic Muscle Disease. The biopsy was sent for further testing. Still waiting for those findings. Also who I have to see about that.
November: Met with my Neurologist in Waukesha she agrees I should be tested for MS she said all symptoms point in that directions. MRI's were scheduled and so was a lumbar puncture (spinal tap).
I had the MRI's done of my cervical and brain, though I still had my drain in laying flat for 2 hrs I managed to do it. No fun.
My spinal tap was Nov. 11th. The procedure itself was not that bad, three punctures later he had all the fluid he needed and I was off to recovery to lay flat for 4 hrs. I went home to lay flat for the remainder of the day.
Then on Thurs. morning I went to my bladder Dr. to have the drain pulled again 3rd trip only to find out I was still draining fluid so they couldn't take it out.
When I got home my head started to hurt so I went to my discharge papers from the spinal tap only to find out they weren't my papers they had nothing to do with my procedure, so I call the hospital and talked the radiologist who did the spinal tap and he told me I had a spinal headache common in 1 to 10 people. He told me what to do and go to pain management on Friday for a blood patch. I could not sit up longer than 5 minutes at a time, then I had to lay flat for about an hour. On Friday I was told they couldn't do the patch because I just had my drain replaced I was considered a very high risk, so I had to wait until Monday. But they assured me the headache would be gone by then.
Monday Nov 16th I went in as an emergency patient and they did the blood patch - they take blood from you arm and inject it into the puncture. In my case she said I had 3 punctures so that explained why I had the headache so bad. 1 hr later the pain was gone.
Test results of the spinal tap showed no MS (praise God). The MRI's of the cervical and brain showed 3 new herniated discs at the c1, c2, and c3 levels just above the cervical fusion I had in February. Not a common location from what I am told.
That is about it - more tests and some results still pending, I will try to update more frequently, these last few months I just wasn't up to it. Thanks for not giving up on me. Deb/Teddybear.
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