Not Again!!!

So exactly 1 month ago, I experienced just about the scariest event of my life.  On Friday, June 12th, my parents and I were on a road trip to Santa Barbara to see my nephew, Mason, graduate from UCSB.  I wasn't feeling well, dizzy and really tired, and attributed it to my brain surgery just 5 weeks earlier.

We got to Solvang, a town we were staying in about 30 minutes from Santa Barbara, and I was just getting worse.  I was really dizzy and my parents had to help me up to our hotel room.  I just took it easy that night and went to sleep early.  Saturday I got up for a while to try to be social because my whole family was there for the graduation, but I ended up sleeping most of the day.  Mind you, I had been sleeping a lot after my surgery, so this wasn't too odd given the previous few weeks.  However, Saturday night, things started to get really scary. I couldn't even stand up on my own and my speech was slurred.  I think I slept a little that night, but by early Sunday morning, I could barely speak and I couldn't stand up at all and we finally called 911.  I was taken to a hospital in Santa Barbara, they did a CT scan of my brain and realized that I had a subdural hematoma, or brain bleed, and needed emergency surgery to relieve the pressure of all the extra blood pressing on my brain.

My recovery from this second surgery has been a lot harder than my previous one.  I had headaches and nearly daily seizures for the first couple weeks.  Any gains I had made in terms of walking have pretty much been erased, though I'm not giving up, doing my exercises in the hope that I'll get some strength back in my leg.  My left arm is significantly weaker than it was and I think the connection between my brain and my left arm has been further disrupted because I have to sort of remind myself that my hand is there.  I keep burning myself on pans and regularly drop things because I simply forget that my hand exists.  It's a very strange phenomenon!  I know it sounds horrible, but it's actually kind of funny and we joke about it.  I'm also doing physical therapy to try to restore some connections between my brain and arm.

The really strange part of it all is that my brain bleed was basically unrelated to my previous brain surgery!  I have been taking blood thinners for years and I had to stop taking them before my first surgery.  When I resumed taking them, 2 weeks prior to our trip to Santa Barbara, I was told to take the same dose I was taking prior to surgery.  Well, it turns out that dose was way too high.  With blood thinners, you need to have your blood monitored regularly because all kinds of things really affect your ability to form clots including diet, alcohol and changes in medication.  I don't drink anymore, mostly because of my blood thinners, but my diet after surgery was very different from prior to it and my medications had changed significantly.  With the level that my blood was at, I could have had the brain bleed anytime, anywhere, regardless of my prior surgery.

So yeah, I had 2 brain surgeries within 5 weeks.  I was pretty bummed after the second one because I thought I'd never feel like myself again or be able to drive again or really have any independence.  However, things have really turned around in the last week or so.  My stamina is getting much closer to normal and I'm not sleeping nearly as much (hence, why I'm writing this post at 3:00am).  I've had a few outings to Sacramento and Jackson and think I might be ready to start driving again soon :)  Life feels like its getting back to normal and I may be able to start thinking about moving out again within a few months.  Only time will tell, but I'm feeling optimistic!