Pain in the Brain

Quick recap: I'm a dufus that has made a lot of really dumb decisions that I can now blame on my (insert Arnold Swarzenegger voice here)....TOO-MUH!  Ok ok seriously.  I'm stuck in bed.  My husband left me.  I'd been on steroids for 3 weeks so I was eating everything in sight, my room was a balmy 40 degrees  because I was always burning up and I was covered in acne.    The local news station came out and did a story on my situation. I was a blubbering goofball on T.V.  I was the epitome of a Hot Southern Mess.  Be prepared, Im adding more pictures than usual on this post because a LOT happened.

September 17, 1996. Under the knife I was about to go though!  Doc told me prior to surgery that he couldn't make any promises because of where the tumor ( I can only say too-muh for some reason) was.  He said I may not make it, I could be blind, I could be deaf....he just didn't know what he would have to dissect to get there.  Off I went behind the curtain, leaving my mom, dad, father, granny, brother, sister and friends in the waiting room as the doctor prepared for a 9 hour surgery.  I was told to think of a happy place and I immediately thought of me laying on the beaches of Hawaii just a few years prior.  That was it......I was asleep.  Later I was told that I was one of the calmest he had ever seen for what I was about to go through.

Victoria giving our signature sign to each other

This was taken right after the first surgery

The pain was excruciating.  I've had migraines since I was 12 years old and this was 5 times worse.  As a helpful measure, the nice nurses hooked me up to a pain pump with a timer.  Dilaudid. Oh wait, they FORGOT to hook up the timer!!!  So instead of it only letting me get a dose when my allotted time was up, I got a dose EVERY TIME I CLICKED THE BUTTON.  That landed me in ICU after my mother found me gasping for air and my fingers turning blue.  Then that caused my mom to breakdown because she was helping me click the button since I couldn't reach it at times so she felt like she nearly killed me.  GAH- can't brain surgery be easier???  :)

My brother kept me walking, I kept him laughing.

Uh......well I tried!

My diet consisted of pureed food. BLEH.

Visitors from home.  Russell, Billy & Neely.

My Neel.  Still love her today.

I made it out of ICU and began to recover in a room.  Quicker than I wanted to I assure you.  My brother came to my bed and said "You're gonna get your ass up and walk because that's what is going to make you better.  So, get up."  (He said it lovingly)  Up I went and I walked and I walked.  Up and down the halls, doing ballet on the rails (not like I knew a thing about ballet) and singing the Rocky theme song as I punched my way down the hall.  I was a hoot. I had oral swabs stuck to my wall because after I swabbed my mouth, I would lob them to see if I could get them to stick.  A couple of the doctors would come to my room to hang out, eat my Pringles and watch TV with me when they got off work.  Might as well make it fun, right?  Only, I wasn't healing like I should.  Fluid kept building up behind my right ear where they sliced me open.  One. Two. Three total spinal taps.  It was then decided that I would need another brain surgery to alleviate the fluid build up. 

September 30, 1996: Surgery was started to put a shunt in place. A 7 hour surgery. They finally shaved my entire head (I still have the bags of hair).  Healing progressed more quickly then.  My notebook says "Ate grits, threw up.  Ate popsicle, threw up.  Danced with Julie, threw up. Walked, threw up."  So on and so forth for 4 days.  I wanted to eat SO badly.  I would lay there and think about the different foods I wanted to eat.  My brother kept a running list for me: big, fat, greasy sausage with thick syrup and canned biscuits, water, peanuts, Pepsi, baked beans & rice with salmon patties, turkey, Subway, Mom's chocolate fudge, sweet tea, Rolen's sheet cake, apple juice, Victoria's mom's potato salad, dressing, chocolate chip cookies, Grilled Glazed Red Lobster Salmon, Ensure Chocolate, fruitcake cookies and Chex snack mix".  I wasn't playin'.  I wanted FOOD.   Finally, a light scope was put down my nose to see if there was anything causing the irritation.  Whatever it was got fixed because then my notebook says "Ate English peas, carrots, baby food, hamburger, Pringles and 1 french fry." 

October 7, 1996: A tropical storm was forming off the coast of Florida but I had just been released from the hospital.  I wasn't staying.  Three weeks was long enough.  I was ready to go home.  Oh yeah, remember I told you my grandmother died while I was in Hawaii.  Well, my grandfather (her husband) died while I was in the hospital.  I found this out a while after I was released because no one wanted to upset me.

My Wonder Brother

When I got home, I walked into a house full of balloons and banners.  My brother did that.  He pushed me to work hard while I was in the hospital and he was there for the reward when I came home.  Guess who else had something to say about my return?  Chad.  Chad called almost every day to check on me when he found out David left me.  My parents adored him so once I was well enough to travel, we headed down to New Orleans to surprise him!  I stayed the weekend and then ended up coming back a couple of more times and eventually I just didn't come back.....