The bruising sounds painful! On a diagnostic angiogram, the Resident assisting my neurosurgeon didn’t put enough weight on the plug and I ended up with a decently sized hematoma. It makes me wonder if you had one. Back several years ago, one of our members had a stent placed and ended up with a hematoma. They did something at the hospital that got rid of it but apparently there was a lot of bruising. Not being in the medical field, and with a memory that’s no longer as good as it was, I can’t remember what was done.
My neurosurgeon had me on plavix and low dose aspirin after my stent was placed. I couldn’t stay on the plavix long but I will forever be on the aspirin. I was even told the other day to stay on the aspirin due to the stent rather than put it on hold for my upcoming ortho surgery. Brain trumps again!
Sounds like you’ve got a great PCP! As I’ve learned here, most neurosurgeons are finished when they’re done taking a gander in our brains and doing the necessary repair. Everything after is left up to another specialist, in our case the neurologist. My second neurologist was the one who taught us about secondary headaches from OTCs and told me I couldn’t stay only take one once daily but for no more than 3x/wk. At that time I had a constant, never stopping migraine for months. Migraines were new to me, I’d only have stress, lack of sleep, lack of eating, lack of hydration and eye strain type headaches that came with the job. Also learned from my career choice that those long adrenaline spikes are not our friend. I know the ER RNs had them as well, seems like things were feast or famine for us all, mostly feast no day was ever the “q” word. The ER RNs I got to know over the years and I would tease each other about the avoidance of using that word, usually saying things like peaceful or boring. But use the q word and it would be anything but calm.
I don’t envy your job, you and your colleagues are made of tough stuff! I’ve seen our ER many times literally have standing room only, all the exam rooms filled, gurneys lining every available space along the walls and RN station along with a waiting room full of people waiting to be seen. The long hours the hospitals put y’all through is asinine in my opinion. My guess is they don’t want a third shift because they’d have more benefits to pay out and every hospital I know needs to show a hefty profit or the CMO gets canned.
It does take time in my non medical opinion for our brains to get used to the different flow of blood stents provide us. How long that time is, may depend upon a lot of factors. But in my mind, right or wrong, our brains are used to somewhat getting the aneurysm fed and then it’s not. It’s the getting used to that I’ve never heard of a neurosurgeon discussing. Ruptured are completely different since we end up with some type of brain damage, whether major or minor it occurs which forces the brain to reroute neurotransmitters. When I asked my neurosurgeon why my stent helped me get over some of my issues or at least improve them, she didn’t know, but neither did my neurologist. I imagine your brain may be a big part of the culprit on your current situation.
I feel many of us who’ve had an incidental find and repair and most of us who’ve ruptured get a different perspective on our lives. We certainly get forced into acknowledging we need to care for ourselves first so we can care for others especially if we are naturally helpers. It is humbling and it’s an immense amount of work to learn to care for ourselves first and foremost, something caregivers also have to learn and adapt too or burnout is really high. I just remembered some of the ER staff would hydrate while they went to the bathroom one of the MDs told me “You gotta do whatever works.”
So I’m thinking do what you need to do so you can do what you want to do! Things do get better, but it will take time. You have a plan which is wonderful! Stick to your plan but I’d also suggest that life throws us roadblocks and it’s good to be aware of alternatives. It’s much easier to go around them, than trying to barrel through them. Lessons learned the hard way from someone who is 66.
Hang in there, we are here for you!
Well, then I also developed hydrocephalus and then meningitis, so my journey back was a bit extended.