Day 182. The three day rule.

Hi there, Jerri here again with an update. 

In an earlier post, I talked about how the first 24 hours post-op are intense, how anything can happen. While that is true, we have found that the first three days post-op is the true extent of the "egg shell" period. In the first three days, not everything that is good lasts, and the same is true for bad symptoms. Anything can happen. 

Day 1 and day 2 post op were fairly un-remarkable. Mom was up walking lots, eating well, neuroassessments were passed with flying colours and the autonomic disreflexia was behaving. She even got transferred out of ICU to the neuro floor on day 2 post op, miles ahead of last time. 

Saturday afternoon however, three days post op, things took a turn. A new pain in the right leg appeared, along with hypersensitivity and weakness. It was such a sudden turn of events that the nurses felt it necessary to pull the fellow out of surgery to come preform an examination. The fellow took a look and ordered an emergency MRI. Here we go again, we all thought. 

I'm not sure if mom has mentioned it or not before, but she is very claustrophobic. So much so that that I think she was more concerned about the MRI than the the new symptoms. An order was placed for Ativan (which she usually takes before an MRI to calm her nerves) but because it was an emergency scan, there were no promises made that the Ativan would come before the scan. 

Mom and I tried to distract ourselves by watching a show on Netflix while we waited. And we waited and waited. And ordered a pizza and waited some more. 

And then everything happened at once, the nurse came in with the Ativan, another nurse came in to put an IV in, the porter showed up to transfer her to MRI. And the pizza showed up. The IV became a challenge to put in (one nurse fainted, another nurse kept saying she "blew it up", and it took 3 nurses  30 minutes to get the thing done), as the porter stood there tapping his foot. All the while, I stood beside the bed feeding mom pizza. 

By the time the whole MRI ordeal was over, it was past midnight. Mom and I, once again, curled up in her bed and waited for the Fellow to come by. We polished off the pizza and then, despite being worried, we both fell asleep. 

I woke to the sound of the fellow walking in to the room 2 hours later. He did a full neuro exam and took a look at the MRI and consulted with Dr. Fehlings. Nothing was concerning, and the prognosis was to wait and see. Phew. 

Since then, we have learned that there is a fluid build up at the level of the surgery, but nothing out of the ordinary for 3 days post op. The leg pain is temporary and this is simply part of the healing process.