Chapter 3-They don't call you

Chapter 3

Riding down the road, sitting in the back seat pretending to sleep, there were a thousand worries going through my head. What would the biopsy show? Would my eyes go back to normal? Would I make it through this? Would Chad stick with me through the whole thing? That question would soon be answered; I just didn’t know it yet. It was an hour and 20 minutes from our house to the hospital where I would have my surgery. That doesn’t really seem like a long time, but it seemed to drag out forever, and in a strange way, pass in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, we were pulling into the hospital parking lot, and it was time to go in.

We went through patient registration without a hitch-surely the first time in medical history that has happened! Then we went to the lab for more blood work, and to get my IV. Now I hate needles with a passion. I always have. I didn’t know why until my mom told me that when I was 8 months old, I got rotavirus, and I ended up in the hospital. The doctors tried to get an IV started on me, and they had to stick me 42 times. (That would be enough to give ANYONE a needle complex!) Even with my needle phobia, bunny managed to get me through it. (You would never believe the strange looks you get as a 20 year old girl walking around carrying an Easter bunny, and hugging it for all you’re worth when you get stuck with a needle.)

After the IV stuff was done, it was back to the surgery waiting room for more of my favorite thing-waiting. Since my parents and my sister were there with me, I wasn’t bored, but I was scared. So was everyone else, so my sister started doing what she does best when she is worried-playing the clown, and making everyone laugh. So there we were, sitting in the waiting room laughing like loons while Sarah demonstrated her drama queen tendencies.

In the middle of all this hilarity, Chad called me on my mom’s cell phone. I was a bit surprised, but he wanted to let me know that no matter what happened today or any other day, he would be there for me, and he wasn’t going anywhere. And he wanted to wish me luck, and he wished he could be there, but he would just be pacing the whole time, so he was going to work on his farm, and he would see me sometime that night. Needless to say, I was very happy when the nurse came to get me. I wish it could have lasted!

When they came to the operating room to get me, I thought it was finally time for me to have my surgery, but it turned out they had to do some preliminary things before hand. Like put me in a HALO frame, because of the type of surgery it was going to be. And then once I was in the frame, they had to take another CT scan of my head. So, now I got to experience the wonderful medieval torture device known as the HALO frame, which really should be instituted as a punishment in the American judicial system.

Now before you can totally appreciate this, you have to know what the HALO looks like. It is a metal frame that sits on your shoulders, and comes up to circle your head like a headband. I guess the goal is to prevent your head from moving once they clamp it on. Now in order to keep it in place, there are four pins that have to be screwed into your skull. They numb the area as they are doing it, so it doesn’t hurt, but they can’t do anything about hearing the pins pop through the layers of bone-and not hearing it with your ears, but actually hearing it inside your head. (If that makes any sense!)

When they have all the pins screwed in, then they have four plates that they have to clamp on, but I am not sure why. Extra torture, I think! Anyway, they put the first plate on, and started to screw it down, and it wasn’t too bad. Just a little pressure. The second plate was uncomfortable, but the third plate was agony. By the time they got the fourth plate on, they should have brought my mother in, because I would have told her anything she wanted to know, just make them stop.

When they finally got the HALO put on me, then I got to have the CT scan. They had to pretty much take apart the CT table, and then when they started to put me in the scanner, my HALO got stuck. Literally. They were trying to gently dislodge it when one of the doctors came in-not one of mine, thankfully. When they explained what had happened, he just grabbed a tool off the counter, and whacked the frame. Did you ever see the cartoons where Bugs Bunny gets stuck inside a bell and someone hits it with a hammer, and his whole body vibrates? Yeah, I know what that feels like now! But, on the positive side, the HALO came loose, and they did the scan.

After that was done, then I got to go to the pre-operating room to wait. My family came in to wait with me, and things progressed without much mishap, at least until I tried to go to the bathroom. I misjudged how far the HALO stuck out around my head, and whacked it on the door frame. BOOOOONNNNNGGGGG! Again, my very best Bugs imitation. Then it was finally time.

I don’t remember much about the surgery, or what happened afterwards, but I do know that I was in the hospital for at least a day recovering-after all; I had just had two brain surgeries in one whack, no pun intended. The upside was that my vision came back, but the down side was that when they identified the type of tumor I had, it was not what they thought it was. Man I hate having to be special all the time!