I have been plagued with headaches for a good part of my life. Though I was never diagnosed, I was convinced I had migraines. The throbbing pain and sensitivity to light and noise that accompanied my headaches were classic migraine symptoms.
On the evening of June 7, 2012, I was struck down with the worst head pain I had ever experienced. It was because I knew my head that I chose to treat this one with my prescribed medication and go to bed to relieve the agony. I had no idea, however, that this pain was not a migraine. This pain felt like a knife stabbing from the top of my head through to my eyes.
Two hours after taking my medication, I was awakened again with the same intense pain. This time, however, it was accompanied by nausea and vomiting. I knew I needed relief, so I shook my husband and woke him. "I need to go to the Emergency Room," I said.
Barely aware of what I was saying, he grunted, "What?"
"I said--I need to go to the ER."
He opened his eyes and looked at me like I was crazy! But, recognition of the pain in my eyes quickly told him this was clearly an emergency. He quickly dressed, escorted me to the car, and drove me to the hospital. The ER staff did their job and gave me a liter of fluid through my veins, as well as IV medication that ultimately put me to sleep and relieved my pain. When I was awakened by a very nice ER Nurse to go home, I found that I felt a little dizzy. They told me that was normal and then told my husband that he could take me home.
Relief is a wonderful thing when you have experienced excruciating pain. However, I was soon to find that my relief was short lived. My headaches returned the following day. They weren't as severe and they responded to my migraine medication so I continued to endure them for another nine days.
I felt in my gut, however, that there was something else going on and for once in my stubborn life, I listened to my deep visceral feelings and did the one thing I should have done ten days earlier. With the encouragement of my concerned husband, we called my physician. We explained to him my circumstances, and got a plan from him to get a CT Scan of my head. Again we drove to the hospital where I was admitted for observation and a CT scan.
At this point, I felt like I was going through a bad dream. Nothing seemed real to me. I remember someone wheeling me to the X-Ray and doing the scan, only it felt like I was in some sort of fog. Some time after I had returned to my room, my doctor came to my bedside. He had a concerned look on his face.
"What's the verdict, Doctor?" I asked.
He took me by the hand and looked me in the eyes and said, "Your CT Scan shows a very large head bleed on the left side which corresponds to where your headaches are located. We are going to have to send you to a hospital in Portland where you can receive a higher level of care."
To say that I was prepared for just such a statement would be an exageration! Some of the diagnoses which came into my mind were, "tumor," "cancer," or some other phenomenon. But a Head Bleed had never entered my mind. It is hard for me to describe what I was feeling. Numb comes to mind. I'm a retired ICU RN and I know the seriousness of this diagnosis. I have helped prepare many patients for transport to a higher level of care facility. Some of those patients made it some of them did not.
I told my doctor, I wanted to see the X-Ray, so he took me to the doctor's dictating room where the X-Ray was still up on the view box. When I looked at it, my knees began to get weak and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stand up.
"Can I sit down?" I asked. He brought me a chair and the two of us went over the areas of the brain that were affected. The bleed was huge and had shifted my whole brain to the right side by one millimeter. No wonder I was having headaches.
When I had seen enough, we went back to my room and the staff got me ready for transport.
***Watch for the next chapter, "Family Reunion and The Fix."
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