Monday, April 11, 2011

I'm in pain!!!!

I wake from the surgery SCREAMING in pain. I'm so groggy and not too sure what's going on. I also can't figure out why I'm in so much pain. They are rolling me through to NICU and I am sitting up in bed clenching my teeth as hard as I can and gripping the sides of the bed screaming, help me, I am in pain! It's all cloudy, but that's exactly what I remember. My family tells me that after 3 hours of surgery my mom receives a call from my neurosurgeon telling her that they have run into some complications. He explains that once he cut into my skull, the bone/tumor growth was MUCH larger than he could see on my scans and the bone was growing up into my brain area, which for me, explained the severe stabbing pains throughout my head. He also explained that my vitals kept dropping dangerously low and they were having an issue with that. He told my mom he would make a call to her every hour and let her know what's going on. Finally, after almost 8 hours, they had to take me out of surgery due to my vital signs dropping. While in the operating room, they had to take me off ALL pain meds to let my vitals rise, so this explains why I was in excruciating pain. When I realize more of what's going on, they tell me if I can muster down a couple dry crackers, they can administer some morphine through my IV. Oh, at this time, I also notice I am wearing 2 IV's. What did they do to me? I am more than willing to eat the crackers for the pain meds, although my mouth is so dry, they taste like chalk. Oh, in the midst of the drama during surgery, my surgeon scared my family so bad that my middle sister called my big sister, which lives 5 hours away in Texas, and told her that it wasn't looking too good, so she needed to get to the hospital. My big sis and her family drove like maniacs to get to me. When I found that out, I had to see her first! I felt so bad for everyone being so scared, while I had no clue what was going on. My family all came in to visit me, two-by-two, and they took some not-so-attractive pictures of my battle wounds. I couldn't see my head or face, so they were trying to show me what I looked like. This was right around Halloween so I decided to call myself FrankenKimmy, since I had the front of my head covered in staples. This wasn't exactly what I imagined. Actually, I don't know what I expected. My right eye looked like someone punched me. It was swollen shut and I couldn't see out of it. The morphine kicked in within seconds and I was feeling relief, but still in pain. I stayed in the NICU that night and the following day. It didn't help my head pain when the "neighbors" were visiting their grandma, laughing and cutting up with their light on, on their side of the room. I quickly let them know that I was not having a party on my side and I mustered up a SHUT UP! I almost felt bad, but then I thought to myself how rude they were being. Regardless, it worked. I'm sure I worked the nurses to no end. I called every 2 hours to let them know that I was in pain and needed some pills. I definitely didn't let the pills go any longer than what they allowed. The pain was too much. I had never felt such pain. I've been in 4 car accidents, passed 2 kidney stones, had a couple other minor surgeries, but never anything like this. I finally get moved to a private room and my neurosurgeon comes in. He looks relieved and happy that I'm alive. He explains the surgery, told me that he cut the bones away from my optic nerve and away from my bulging eye. He explained how he cut through my main jaw muscle to remove my skull bone in my right temporal region, and replaced it with titanium mesh. He then tells me that he had to stop right there, although he knows that there is still mass located in the area of my ear and jaw, but he couldn't go any further. He hoped what was left would die out. I'm on pain meds and not exactly comprehending everything he said. The titanium mesh and removing skull bone was still playing through my head, but then I hit the part about the mass still LEFT IN MY HEAD? WHAT????? I just had brain surgery and you didn't get it all out?