As many of you know, Sunday night I posted (in much frustration) about horsing around with my daughter and it ending with me getting smacked in the jaw with the back of her head and knocking my tooth loose. Which ended play. Which caused her, and by extension, my youngest daughter, horrible guilt.
It started out innocently enough. We never left the couch, so it didn't seem like anyone could get too injured, right? She declared I couldn't force her off the couch, which was a challenge I could hardly resist. A challenge I most certainly should have resisted.
The jaw is, as you know, without exception connected to the head. As Monday wore drew to a close it became evident to me that my loose tooth was not the only casualty of Sunday night's folly.
Why am I writing so weird? It's all formal and stuff.
It became clear to me Monday night while I was trying to sleep that I was suffering from more severe headaches and dizziness than before. Kind of like when I originally hit my head 13 months ago, but with less of the confusion. Some of the less savory side effects were there, though, like my brain wanting to focus on swear words (I know, weird), being nauseated and super dizzy every time I moved, and the increased and intense headache.
I knew my concussion was worse, that when my daughter and I collided heads Sunday night I did more damage to my already damaged brain than I'd thought. Hanging out there in bed in the dark, being the only one awake and realizing I was probably concussed, again, I wasn't too comfortable falling asleep. But everyone had school the next day. I didn't want to bother anyone.
Isn't that just like a Mom? So I just stayed there, by myself, trying not to be too scared, until I eventually fell asleep about 3 am.
I woke up about 11 Tuesday morning and found Bryan home. As it happened, he woke up sick and stayed home. Not terribly sick, but nauseated and dizzy, with a couple of other symptoms. I thought, for a bit, that maybe we had the same thing and I was just sick and not concussed. But he had symptoms I didn't have, and my symptoms were too familiar to be mistaken.
So, after my shower I sat down with Bryan and explained to him what was going on. We focused on the idea of getting me a CT scan to make sure I hadn't done any damage, and sort of forgot to follow the normal pattern of medical procedure (call your Dr, let them know what happened, make an appt, get a referral, etc). We went to the ER.
When you go to the ER in the middle of a business day you have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions about what you're doing there and not at your regular Dr. I regretted going, but honestly our thought was just on getting that CT scan asap. It wasn't well thought out of us. The only thing I will say is the drive to the hospital took 5 minutes, and it was excruciating. The drive to my Dr would have taken close to 40. I never would have made it.
The ER visit itself was horrible, as these things go. We got our CT scan, which was my focus. Their focus was my level of pain, which was a 7, but like I told Bryan at the time the pain is the pain. I wasn't worried about that. It's just what it is. (sooo foolish of me, but more on that later). We only wanted to be certain my brain was intact. The Dr was a little abrupt and the old school type, but he did give me a pain shot, which I did not expect, and prescribed me something for my nausea, which was nice.
The sequence of events becomes important. I got my pain shot minutes before they wheeled me back for the CT scan. It wasn't until I was in the machine that I remembered how much it hurts to get a CT scan with a concussion. There's a fair bit of jostling that happens within the machine, and by the time it's over, you're exhausted from trying to hold still and your head is pounding from the motion. Also you're so dizzy you can't even tell which way is up. They wheeled me back to my room, I curled up on the bed and cried. It was one of those involuntary cries where the tears just flow/leak from your eyes and you are powerless to stop it. I can say, at that point, my pain was probably an 8.
One of the nurses came by and switched off the lights for me, bless them. My sensitivity to light and sound at the point was extreme. Another came and gave me a wet cloth to put over my eyes. These wonderful women knew headaches. Meanwhile I just waited for that pain shot to kick in. One of the nurses asked if it had yet. Nope. I purposely asked for it in the right hip because I have a twinge of chronic pain there, and figured it would hit that first so I was kind of using that as a benchmark.
Lest you think I was alone, Bryan was there holding my hand. I know it's hard for him to see me in that much pain. We talked about when I was in labor with the kids, Brandon in particular because I was especially entertaining that time, and pretty much anything else that came to mind. It took nearly the whole hour waiting for the CT scan results to be read for the pain to subside to a 4. At least, the pain and nausea were able to take a back seat to the dizziness, which I guess is a good thing?
The good news is that the CT scan showed no evidence of a blood clot or brain bleed, or dead tissue resulting from a stroke. Yay! So I managed not to do any permanent damage to my brain.
The bad news is that the CT scan revealed my left frontal sinus is completely blocked. It was also this way in the scan done last August, so clearly the sinus is not draining. That's going to have to be addressed. It can't be helping my condition. (This is something my Dr is aware of. I had a referral to my kids' ENT before this ER visit)
As far as my concussion symptoms go, today, while I'm not back at square one, if there's a square 2 or 3 I'm there. Things like sitting up and cutting fabric or sitting at the sewing machine are beyond me right now. I can't say for how long. I need to follow up with my Dr, and I'm probably going to be going back to a neurologist and, likely, an ENT. Irony is just Sunday I was telling Bryan how tired I am of Drs. I wanted to just ride out the healing and wait until my brain got better. But this new injury is going to require medical care, attention, and monitoring.
I just hope the setback is not going to last long.
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