*sigh* I had a follow-up appointment with my primary care doctor today for the problems with my back. But, I also told her about what happened on Saturday. She got so concerned by the fact that I was obviously not myself that she sent me over to the Emergency Room at Walter Reed. I only just got back from there a short while ago. They were far more thorough than the folks at the last Emergency Room, and, to top it all off, practically all of my doctors were really rather cute! 😀 Tee hee.
Anyway. I had another CT scan, I was seen by four doctors, one of whom was a neurologist. I had the full evaluation, including the neurologist poking around and prodding me with those reflex tool thingies. They drew more blood to repeat some of the tests from Saturday, and do a few more tests and cultures. They even went so far as to test my kidney and liver functions. Guess what? All of those were “pristine”, as Gap-model Doctor Number Two said.
Even though all those test results were peachy, they still weren’t satisfied. My lovely little team decided to go the extra mile and do a spinal tap on me to check for the possibility of a viral infection of my central nervous system. They thought that seemed like the most likely cause for all these problems. Honestly, the spinal tap wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I didn’t feel too much of it, really. And thankfully, my spinal fluid was beautifully clear and everything was great.
Now they’re thinking I have some kind of viral infection in my system, and they’re still trying to figure out why my head is hurting so badly. I’m going to see the neurologist again next week to check on my progress and see if there’s anything else he can do for me.
When I first went to Walter Reed tonight I wasn’t too impressed. It seemed really stripped bare – there weren’t any proper hospital beds in the rooms, just gernies. No TVs in the rooms either. But the staff was amazing. My nurse (*another* rather nice looking young man) was fantastic, as was the guy (yes, another one) who drew my blood several times. And the doctors, like I’ve said, were great.
Know what else was fabulous? The pain killers they gave me! They started me on some liquid pain killer injected through my IV. They said it was like really powerful motrin without the nasty stomach upset side effects. It helped my head a little bit but not much. Undeterred by this, they decided to go for the big guns. Gap-Model Doctor Number Three said, “I don’t mess around with headaches, I’ll get you the good stuff.” A little while later, the nurse shows up with an IV bag of saline, and a very small syringe full of another liquid pain killer. He said, “This is fentanyl, ever heard of it?” I told him I hadn’t. He replied, “Ever had Morphine?” Mmhmm. “It’s like that, only about 100 times better.” He went on to explain that it’s a really amazing narcotic that kicks in almost immediately and is incredibly potent. Only problem is it wears off pretty fast. He said I’d get pretty sleepy right away. I watched him as he injected it, and soon enough, he looked really fuzzy around the edges. My eyelids felt heavy and I felt veeeerrry happy. In a matter of minutes, my headache was gone. My bruises didn’t hurt. And I felt like sleeping. It was amazing!
Just as the nurse said, it did wear off pretty quickly. By the time it wore off I was ready to go home finally. It was 2 in the morning by that point. I asked Gap Model Doctor Number Three about what I’d have to take home to take care of the pain. Again, the Doctor said that he doesn’t take headaches mildly, and he’d send me home with enough “good stuff” to keep me happy until my appointment with the neurologist. He sent me home with perkaset, another lovely narcotic. And, next week, when I see the neurologist, he’ll give me some lovely naprosyn, an amazingly effective pain killer that lasts ages. I really like these young cute doctors, they don’t take pain lightly. If it hurts, they dope you up and get rid of the pain. It’s great! I may have been bored, laying in that room alone for ages without a TV, but dang was I happy once I got those pain killers and for once my head wasn’t pounding.
I think I may try to sleep now. My headache still hasn’t come back entirely, I think there’s still some trace of those pain killers in my system. So I’m going to try to take advantage of that. No telling how well that will work, but we shall see.