To put my own spin on Jeff Foxworthy's famed phrase, "You Might Be a Military Spouse and Mommy if...you've ever driven yourself to the Emergency Room because your eyes are swelling shut and you refuse to have I.V. drugs because they take too long and would upset your husbands school schedule and your daughter's care.
Yep, you guessed it. My eyes continued to swell and since I have an allergy to latex, which makes it hard for me to breathe on occasion during a reaction, I decided that I needed to go to the Emergency Room. Here's where the real fun begins. I realized at 2:00 a.m. that my eyes weren't getting any better and that slowly they were getting worse. The next step might be breathing issues if I continued to stay at home and let it play out. So, I woke my husband up and told him that I was driving myself to the Emergency Room. No, don't freak out...it was my decision for him to stay behind and take care of our daughter. The hospital here in Monterey didn't permit any children under the age of 18 in the hospital due to the threat of the H1N1 virus so someone had to stay home with her. Besides, it was a quick 15 minute drive at 2am.
Once I got to the Emergency Room they quickly ushered me back to a room where I was examined carefully by a nurse while I waited for the doctor to come in. While I was waiting for the doctor the nurse wanted to start an I.V. on me. This is about a joke. I'm a hard stick and so those don't go in unless I or the doctor truly think that it's necessary. I politely asked him to hold off until the doctor came in, which he did with no problems once he saw my crapped out veins. Folks it's not hard to figure out, 34 surgeries plus other minor procedures = crappy veins. I've actually made nurses cry because they've had to stick me so many times.
Anyway, back to the story. When the doctor came into the room a few minutes later, he seemed to figure out what was going on. After examining me, it seemed to him that I was having an allergic reaction to something they used during surgery, but whatever that thing was would remain a mystery. He told me that he wanted them to start an I.V. so that he could give me a few different antihistamines to shock my system back to normal so to speak. During his examination he did figure something out that baffled me, but also gave me some relief. It seems that the annoying echo that I was hearing in my right ear after surgery was because my inner ear was swollen due to this reaction. He assured me that the meds would work and that the echo would disappear once the swelling went down.
Before he had the nurse start my I.V. he asked who would be taking me home. When I told him that I would be taking myself home, he looked at me funny and said, "well I hope that you have 6 hours to wait here AFTER the medicine goes in because that's how long you have to wait here to make sure that you're okay to drive." By this time it was 3 am and my husbands first class started at 8am and Caylee had to be at school by 8:30. Nope, I didn't have time for this. So I asked him what my other options were. He told me that he could prescribe medications in pill form for me to take, and that I could pick them up at the pharmacy and be on my way within the hour. Ding Ding Ding!!!! I'll take curtain #2.
On the way to the pharmacy, I contemplated how I had come to this decision. I had made the decision without any real thought at all to prolong my allergic reaction so that I could be home in time for my husband to go to school and for me to take my daughter to school as well. Not to make myself sound like a martyr or anything because I'm no where near that. I just think it's funny how the needs of military spouses and parents, some are one in the same go unnoticed. Then I realized that not only does my husband have to put his duties first, so do I. It was quite an eye opening experience for me.
That decision has played in the back of my mind each time that I have had to make a decision that will affect my family. It weighs heavy on my decisions and my train of thought. I think that when we marry our active duty spouses and become parents, we sign somewhat of a silent contract that states that we'll always put the needs of our spouses and children above our own. So, in closing, "You Might Be a Military Spouse and Mommy If" you look like someone punched you in the face and you ask yourself, Will my husband still be able to make it to class if I do this?"
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Dr. Blue Eyes
Oh hey there! Yep, you guessed it. I'm baaaccckkk! I realize that it has been one month since I last posted, but that's all going to change. Now that the worst of my surgery is over, I can now get back on track with my writing and blogging ventures. The last month has not been an easy one. It has presented several hurdles along the way. In the midst of those hurdles, I've learned a lot about myself, my family, my friends and well...to be honest, good ol' Dr. Blue Eyes has learned a lot about me too.
Let me back up a little to 3 weeks ago when I had my first hurdle. You see, 3 weeks ago I woke up with red, swollen, itchy eyes. As if this wasn't a big enough problem when I'm supposed to be getting up to drive my daughter to school. When I got up to inspect the problem, I also noticed lots of little red bumps all over my forehead. It looked like someone had punched me in the face. How in the heck was I going to take Caylee to school looking like this? Yeah, no worries my husband had to e-mail his professors and tell them all that he would be missing class on this particular day. Instead of sitting in class, he was Driving Miss Courtney (and Caylee). It was kind of nice for a change to be honest, but the conditions under which he was forced to do so were awful.
Throughout the day, I took Benadryl and kept ice on my eyes praying that the swelling would go down and that it was just a fluke, but no such luck. Later that night, as I was talking to my husband I noticed that he was looking at me funny. Okay, funnier than he usually looks at me. He then noticed that I had a red outline on every one of my incision sites. Are you kidding me? As if this nightmare wasn't bad enough already...now it looked like I totally lost a fight with Freddy Kruger. My incisions were all itchy, red and raised and my eyes looked like someone punched me in the face. You've got to be kidding me! The Benadryl wasn't even touching my symptoms.
At this point, I'll be honest, I freaked out a little. Okay, maybe I freaked out a lot. So I called the Neurosurgeon on call, which happened to be a nice gentleman by the name of Dr. Carver. When I told him what was happening he told me that it sounded like I was having what they call a silastic allergy. This meant that my body was reacting to the silicone tubing that they had just replaced. At this point, I thought that someone was playing a cruel joke on me. You've got to be kidding right? Dr. Carver continued asking me questions about the surgery that I had just endured and other medical history. When I told him that I had my last tubing for 30 years, the phone went silent. I thought the man had hung up on me. Come to find out, he was just in shock. Enough shock that after we ended our first conversation, he called me back 3 additional times to make sure that I was serious about how long I had my previous tubing. In the final call he told me that I needed to make a follow-up appointment for the following day with Dr. Blue Eyes. Okay, no problem.
The following day I called the office and was told to come in immediately. Once I got to the office they showed me back to my waiting room right away. I know, you have to be just as shocked as I was that I got in so quickly. To make a long story short, Dr. Blue Eyes came in to see me. He checked out my now only slightly swollen, red, itchy eyes and decided that I was not having a silastic allergy reaction as Dr. Carver had predicted, but that I was allergic to something that they used during surgery, to which we have no idea what that could be. He checked my incision sites and sent me on my way.
I was hoping that the worst was behind me. Clearly, I was wrong...dead wrong. I'll explain the rest in my next post so stay tuned.
Let me back up a little to 3 weeks ago when I had my first hurdle. You see, 3 weeks ago I woke up with red, swollen, itchy eyes. As if this wasn't a big enough problem when I'm supposed to be getting up to drive my daughter to school. When I got up to inspect the problem, I also noticed lots of little red bumps all over my forehead. It looked like someone had punched me in the face. How in the heck was I going to take Caylee to school looking like this? Yeah, no worries my husband had to e-mail his professors and tell them all that he would be missing class on this particular day. Instead of sitting in class, he was Driving Miss Courtney (and Caylee). It was kind of nice for a change to be honest, but the conditions under which he was forced to do so were awful.
Throughout the day, I took Benadryl and kept ice on my eyes praying that the swelling would go down and that it was just a fluke, but no such luck. Later that night, as I was talking to my husband I noticed that he was looking at me funny. Okay, funnier than he usually looks at me. He then noticed that I had a red outline on every one of my incision sites. Are you kidding me? As if this nightmare wasn't bad enough already...now it looked like I totally lost a fight with Freddy Kruger. My incisions were all itchy, red and raised and my eyes looked like someone punched me in the face. You've got to be kidding me! The Benadryl wasn't even touching my symptoms.
At this point, I'll be honest, I freaked out a little. Okay, maybe I freaked out a lot. So I called the Neurosurgeon on call, which happened to be a nice gentleman by the name of Dr. Carver. When I told him what was happening he told me that it sounded like I was having what they call a silastic allergy. This meant that my body was reacting to the silicone tubing that they had just replaced. At this point, I thought that someone was playing a cruel joke on me. You've got to be kidding right? Dr. Carver continued asking me questions about the surgery that I had just endured and other medical history. When I told him that I had my last tubing for 30 years, the phone went silent. I thought the man had hung up on me. Come to find out, he was just in shock. Enough shock that after we ended our first conversation, he called me back 3 additional times to make sure that I was serious about how long I had my previous tubing. In the final call he told me that I needed to make a follow-up appointment for the following day with Dr. Blue Eyes. Okay, no problem.
The following day I called the office and was told to come in immediately. Once I got to the office they showed me back to my waiting room right away. I know, you have to be just as shocked as I was that I got in so quickly. To make a long story short, Dr. Blue Eyes came in to see me. He checked out my now only slightly swollen, red, itchy eyes and decided that I was not having a silastic allergy reaction as Dr. Carver had predicted, but that I was allergic to something that they used during surgery, to which we have no idea what that could be. He checked my incision sites and sent me on my way.
I was hoping that the worst was behind me. Clearly, I was wrong...dead wrong. I'll explain the rest in my next post so stay tuned.
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