Hey everyone,
Yesterday I went for a eye test and lumbar puncture at my local hospital. Three weeks ago I had a phone call to tell me the date and times of my eye test and lumbar puncture and have been worried about it since. I've had sleepless nights from worry because I had been told that lumbar puncture's hurt, cause you to have back pain (and that's without having back problems anyway!) and you have server headaches (again if you don't have chronic headaches anyway) so I was so scared about it. I was to have my eye test at 11:00am and travel over to the other side of the hospital for my lumbar at 1:00pm.
I arrived on time for my eye test to be told that I wasn't on the system and in fact didn't have an appointment! I was not happy, I was told to go to another desk which was for self referrals. I was asked by the lady there if I had a referral letter with me from the neurological department which I didn't have as I wasn't sent one. After a lot of running around they finally squeezed me in as it wasn't an error due to me. I had a visual fields test and was told that my visual fields were constricted and my blind spots where enlarged, I said "which means?" and "he said its common to what ever their searching for" The problem being I don't know what their searching for! We all knew what he meant and wasn't saying was that its common to MS, doctors refuse to say those two little letters because they mean so much so they talk in codes. So many times I've been told that what I'm going through is very common to a certain"neurological problem" but they won't actually say the words until I'm diagnosed.
After my eye test I made my way to the neuroscience day surgery, when I walked in I was shocked and full of fear as it was like a ward full of people who were on drips. I don't really know what I was expecting but I thought I would wait in a waiting room then be called into a room by a doctor the lumbar puncture would be done, I would wait a couple of hours then go home instead I was shown to a bed and waited for the doctor to come.
I waited in the bed looking around at all the people on drips, they were MS patients having regular medication through IV. It was a real slap in the face for me as if it is MS I will be there like these other men and women stuck on a IV for hours on end. You know what else that shocked me? regardless of being hooked up to an IV machine he nurses and patients where laughing and joking with each other. We all know that "sick" people go into hospital and have medication or something like chemo and that there are wards dedicated for it but you really don't fully understand till your there yourself and the reality hits you square between the eyes, I was really amazed!
I'm not afraid to admit it I cried my eyes when I got there out of fear, I was shitting myself to put it bluntly. 1:00pm came and went and I wasn't called by the doctor and as I began to settle down and spend more time in the ward I began to feel easy, the people and nurses where really friendly.
At 4:00pm I was called by the doctor to have my lumbar puncture, its really funny because as she was explaining what was going to happen she was showing me with this model vertebrae and as she bent it to show the curving of the spine it snapped! So imagine she telling an showing you her curving your spine then snap! its was so funny I couldn't help but laugh neither could my husband.
After she finished explaining I got on the bed and she started feeling and drawing the spot she was going to inject, it hurt! She was poking and prodding me and it seemed like forever she was doing this, I just wanted it over with! She then injected the local anesthetic, it felt like she was not only in my back but in my hip too. The pain was immense and no sooner as she injected I started puking, yep that's right my body not only wants to put me through pain it also wants me being sick too! Remember me saying when ever I'm in pain I puke? well there you go, every time I have any kind of drug or pain I'm sick so the doctor had to wait until I finished.
While I was sitting up and had a break from being sick the doctor put in the needle, even with the local anesthetic it still hurt. Once in I then had to lie down with the needle in my back, this was no easy task and the needle became dislodged as I did do she then had to rearrange the needle again. I just wanted it over, I lay there as she was checking the pressure and collecting the samples trying not to move or be sick.
She finished and toke the needle out, I began being sick again. The pain and headache hit me as soon as I sat up and all I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep but she told me I had to have blood taken too. I just gave her my arm, I've had so many blood tests they don't bother me anymore. As she put the needle in she had forgotten something tried to reach for it knock the needle which came out and pieced another hole, blood started squirting everywhere I thought "for goodness sake! this is just like me!" It was typical of my life, nothing is simple! She ended up taking blood from the other arm.
I was taken back to the ward but it was empty, only two nurses were left and me. I had to wait two hours for observation and my blood pressure was low but I wasn't going to spend the night in hospital. I forced myself up and smiled at the nurses protesting that I was fine just so they would send me home. In those two hours I ended up having a good conversation with the nurses who I told what the neurologist said and they agreed he didn't know what he was talking about! so to have reassurance was nice.
I'm still in pain and have a headache, I feel like I've been in a car crash all my body aches. You never really know what its like for someone who is ill till you are, you never can truly understand what its like to go through painful procedures until your the one going through them. So I salute all those of you who have server illness, and despite popular belief it isn't easy and I will never understand someone who "fakes it" for the benefits because trust me the money so isn't worth what I've been through and I certainly wouldn't go through it unless I had to!
Thanks for reading xxx
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