#4- It Would be Helpful if I Could Ninja Roll out of the Recliner

A head incision, a monkey named Henry, and a recliner are the characters in this story. Ah...my recliner. I do love it greatly. I avoided ever buying one because they are so hideous looking and impossible to blend into any style of living room. However, after my original VP shunt surgery, I found it hard to sleep in a flat bed, and I often rolled over on the bad side causing gross pillowslips and a ton of pain the next morning. Therefore, I surrendered my anti-recliner stance and began to desperately want one.

My fellow zipperhead planned better and purchased her duo of recliners BEFORE coming home from her surgery. Good thinking Gretchen! So thanks to some Christmas money, Kyle and I headed to Nebraska Furniture Mart to claim our comfy chair that would ruin my living room motif (I didn't really have one anyway). We settled on the biggest, cushioniest, ugliest chair in that small town of furniture. It had a "bump," non itchy brown material, and it rocked. Lastly, it reclined ALL the way back and remained in that reclining position, making it a perfect nest for a few weeks.

Henry, our friskiest child, is always climbing onto and off of laps when he's not jumping off couches, benches, and tables. He just has amazing balance and curiosity of how his body will land the higher he goes up.


So it wasn't too alarming when he climbed onto my lap one cold winter afternoon. I was taking advantage of the full reclining feature the chair offered when he wiggled onto my lap. Then he crawled up to the lumbar/headrest part of the recliner. Smack! 1/2 my body weight mixed with his made the recliner tip backwards. Like, all the way backwards. As in "I'm now staring at the ceiling with my legs in the air" backwards.

Now what I do?  Henry just rolls out of the situation effortlessly with a back ninja roll. I would have done the same (without the accompanying grace) if I didn't have 19 staples in my head. And the fact we fell into a corner made it impossible to roll out sideways.  Here is a pic of the little monkey peeking out of his demolition. He, of course, thought this whole thing was HILARIOUS!



My Monkey smiling at Dad before he helps me up

With such concern Franki, Moe, and Henry tried to pull me up; it was really cute, but they didn't know really how much I weighed. Luckily Moe is a responsible kid and was able to follow one command: Go Get Daddy! He ran downstairs to "Daddy's Workshop" and told Kyle he needed to help me (as if he hadn't heard the earth-rattling crash!). So Kyle comes upstairs to this ridiculous situation. Unfortunately, I did not learn from that and had two more recliner tips, but I was able to do that ungraceful ninja roll I wanted to execute earlier in the year.

A Heavy Whole Body Agitation

Putting the Top Ten on hold so I can share about my panic and how it might just be manifesting it's ugly head right now.

After every medical situation, I seem to have a period of high anxiety/panic. After the insomnia pre-term labor thing (don't know what to call it), I had two unproductive weeks. After the Thyroid Storm, I had at least a month where panic plagued my mind to such an extreme I could not care for my kids. When I had original VP shut fitted, I struggled so much I was inflicting physical pain to myself as an escape from the mental discomfort. Then after the Spring shunt malfunction I struggled a week or two with tears and anxiety. By Spring, I used my medication like it was prescribed so my "crazy" period was shortened and a lot less severe. As a result of all this, the past 5 weeks I have been waiting for my bacterial meningitis/pulling the shunt situation to cough up the panic hangover I've experienced the past 4 times.

Last week I thought maybe I dodged the panic by using my medication correctly and beginning to write about my story, so I rejoiced. However, today I woke up with that pre-panic comatose feeling that prequels high anxiety. It is not about what my mind is thinking or worried about. It is about the heavy whole body feeling of agitation. I wake up with it, and it follows me to the shower, to my daily activities, and then to bed where it typically keeps me awake. With this agitation I stay hyper-vigilant of my emotions and obsessively try to put a reason to why I feel this way. This morning when I woke up with the heavy feeling I came up with a list of whys...

1. I forgot a refill on my SSRI, Paxil, so I had to skip a day until I got it filled.
2. I am in the "beautiful" time of the month so that could be messing with my nerves.
3. I am off all the pain killers and from the past (a whole other story) I know my system unintentionally gets addicted to opium derived drugs quickly, so I may be feeling a little "withdrawal" 
4. It is cold and no chance for sun/Vitamin D exposure.
5. No exercise lately
6. Crumbing eating too

So today I try to fix all that. First, I fix my diet. I have been eating Eggo's leftover pumpkin waffles on sale at Hy Vee for breakfast, they really are so tasty. But today I make a breakfast of steel cut oatmeal, blueberries and Greek yogurt. Then I fill my script and immediately take one and a Vitamin D supplement while I try to linger in the Hy Vee parking lot to get some sun on my face and forearms. When I start shivering, I decide I have had enough Vitamin D. Though I truly wanted to skip it and stay in my recliner, I make it to a Lee's Summit Momma's meeting. Isolation is horrible for panic/anxiety/depression, so I go because that is what I am suppose to do. However, after the meeting is over, I feel the heaviness get heavier. I go home and try for a walk, but it is too cold outside. So I manically clean the house to get my heart rate up; then maybe I can consider that exercising. As for the "withdrawal" and "beautiful" time theories I reassure myself that time is the only cure for those. My last aid is to try writing. Maybe writing will make me feel like I have some kind of control over it...that heavy feeling?

Now tomorrow, just ONE day after trying to fix the heavy feeling, will be a pivotal day. Either I will wake up feeling a little bit better or the same. If I feel the same, pure panic will take over because I will IRRATIONALLY think I am in the throws of a major panic episode and fear will keep my mind from settling down and resting. I sure hope tomorrow will be better and lighter.

I am still hesitant sharing about my mind's thoughts because they are irrational a lot of the time. Plus they are not very funny and hard to make fun of. However, I can't truly share my story without sharing my authentic self  rather than just comical superficial stories about my neurosurgeon, Diego, Ebony, and Walter. So sitting here with this heaviness is where I am right now, and I hope anyone else who struggles with similar problems will empathize.

#5-A Christmas Eve Tale

After being released from my initial shunt surgery last December, my stomach gradually began to hurt. From near-OCD research on websites and group forums, I expected my gut to occasionally hurt due to the new junk being introduced to my perineum (stomach lining). Probably needlessly reminding you that a shunt acted as a long straw from a brain hole, that had too much fluid, to my stomach lining where large amounts of fluids could be absorbed. Another end source for a shunt is the heart which is called a VA shunt (Ventricular Atrial). When the VP shunt was originally suggested, I was highly relieved. The idea of connecting two of my most significant organs (brain and heart) with a piece of man made tubing seemed a bit out of my safe zone.

I was happy that I didn't feel the described burning sensation when the shunt released extra CSF (brain juice) down my water slide of a catheter. Then 6 days out, a general stomach discomfort began. It felt like I ate one too many Hostess cupcakes. The next few days the stomach status moved from "belly ache" to "possible organ exploding". Nausea was also making things worse. I called the neurosurgeon and left a message. The next morning I am awakened at 8am by a call from Dr. Basta himself. He  neglects to even say hello before he starts blasting question after question at me: Is your stomach incision raised? Is a fluid sack under the incision? Are you vomiting? Do you have a fever? I say no to all questions while I hear him literally pass the phone to his nurse. The RN comes on the phone and tells me to go to Lee's Summit Medical Center to have an x-ray done. I follow up with "what could be wrong?" She said she didn't know, and that is why the x-ray was ordered.

We got the x-ray completed and the nurse called me the next day on Christmas Eve saying Basta could not see anything wrong on the x-ray. However, an x-ray wasn't the best image for possible fluid collection (so, why was an x-ray ordered to begin with?). I needed to have a CT done back at Research. She had also worked me into the schedule so Basta could "lay eyes on me." At this point, I was a bit alarmed; there had to be something wrong to warrant a phone call from the doc himself and an x-ray and CT to be ordered. I downed an anti-nausea pill, called a grandma to watch the kids, and canceled on a friend who was visiting in order to make the trek back to Research. The CT was performed and we headed up to Basta's office. Unfortunately, since we were a schedule add-on, we had to wait almost two hours to see him. Once we were in a patient room I noticed my hands were shaking and my breath quickened; I was nervous to be there on that exam table. Unknowingly, my panic trigger was beginning to morph from my pre-motherhood insomnia to this particular office.

As he opened the door and walked in, he announced that I needed to "clean my pipes out." Was that a medical term? Was the catheter blocked? Did that involve a hospital stay? Why is he smiling? These were all the questions going through my head.  Seeing I was confused, he emphasized "you need to POOP!" My face turned red and I began to incessantly apologize for wasting his time. In some kind of weird way I felt like a failure as a patient because there wasn't anything wrong with me. When we arrived back home, Kyle's mom asked if everything was ok; I looked down and said that I was fine. When she asked for more details, I quietly muttered that I was only constipated.  In Liz Lemon fashion I wanted to yell,  "I worried a bunch of people, had 2 different medical tests done, and made a last minute Christmas Eve neurosurgeon appointment because I couldn't POOP. Yep, I am the idiot. Blerg!"

In fact I hadn't had a BM since the surgery. So while the kids poured milk into a glass for Santa's visit, I was shooting Milk of Magnesia in the other room. Ironically, my stomach pain disappeared after my pipes were cleaned.