I am in week 4.5 post surgery. I had a bypass. I tried to ask the doctor about the possibility of blood spillage during surgery and its effects on the brain. He cut me off saying that it wouldn’t happen, and no blood would be spilled.
Wellllll, cut to week 2 post surgery, I’ve finally had my first 2 good days since surgery. I was able to walk around and do chores and even go out. I’m sitting in front of my computer when a huge pain hits my head, my neck freezes up and I’m afraid I’m hemorraghing. My pain level skyrockets to 7/10 and I scream. Thank god my mom was still with me taking care of me. We drive to ED, While in ED, my pain goes up to level 8 and I’m afraid I’m going to pass out. I’m also afraid I’m going to die waiting to get imaging. Morphine doesn’t even touch the pain. They give a 2nd dose, and nothing.
I’m ambulanced an hour to Denver. They give me fentanyl which works thank god. I have to wait until the next morning to receive an angiogram since I was 8 hours in the ED of the previous hospital. The next morning, my angio shows NEW blood since my surgery (they had to get imaging from my surgeon on Phx to compare). The surgeon in Denver says he cannot treat me since he was not my surgeon. He says he thinks I have meningeal irritation (he didn’t test, just because of my neck spasm and photophobia). He leaves me with pain medicine and muscle spasm meds for a few days, and says to call my doctor in Phx (which we did and didn’t hear back from).
Finally a week later, my dad gets through to Barrow. They say they can’t prescribe out of state. Say to ask my local doctor for meds. So another merry-go-round on meds. Then we talk to secretary and find out yes, they prescribe out of state meds all the time! Get my steroid pack and it starts to help about 4 days later. Mind you, I had about lost my ability to walk by this point, and I’m a dog walker/pet sitter/gym rat. The meningeal irritation caused really bad sacral pain which got worse each day, and it took more than 7 days to get treated!!!
Anyhow, has anyone else been through this? My recovery experience has been just trying to keep out of the Emergency room for the most part. I still have neck pain/spasm and am going to a medical masseuse.
There is almost nothing published about the irritation. And why would it suddenly happen 2 weeks post surgery? It’s a little scary. The doctors say they don’t think the blood was new, but it was new since my post-surgery angiogram.