Brain Surgery: The Aftermath
The thrilling followup to “I Need Brain Surgery (And I Feel Fine)”.
It’s been a little over 3 months since the surgery (and over 5 weeks since I started writing this post). As I expected, the surgery itself was nothing special from my perspective. They placed an IV through which they delivered anesthesia and rolled me into the operating room. The last thing I remember was seeing a couple of steel operating tables and giant lights. And thinking, “Wait — where is the ergonomic chair or hammock they’re gonna put me in for the surgery?” Then it was lights out.
Slowly, I “awoke” to a drugged stupor 7 hours later in a room in ICU. My family was there, looking concerned and slightly amused. Apparently in the hour or two when I was coming to consciousness, a nurse adjusted my pillow, to which I cooed “ohh yeah”. Uhhh... oops? I’m not really that embarrassed, considering how woozy I felt. Woozy and then suddenly queasy—I threw up violently shortly after waking.
Nurses assured me it was normal. Feeling thirsty, I drank perhaps too much water and vomited again shortly thereafter. Mostly I felt OK—tired, but OK—however I was attacked by sudden waves of nausea, which passed as quickly as they came. I was a bit concerned about the vomiting, as I was warned by the neurosurgeon anything “strenuous” could cause a spinal fluid leak, which would be Bad (with a capital “B”).
The surgeons visited me (I think — can’t be sure with how drugged up I was). They told me the surgery went well. The neurosurgeon kept saying “pristine” which I guess is a good thing. On the downside, my auditory nerve was entombed by the tumor and they had to completely sever it. It will never recover.
I will never hear in my left ear again.
They also severed my balance nerve on the left side, so it resulted in decreased balance for me. Theoretically my brain should adjust to having just balance input from the one side, and with some balance exercises I should get back to 100% balance in time.
Anyway, soon I was asleep for the evening, aided somewhat by IV Dilaudid (a synthetic analogue to morphine which is said to be about 8 times stronger).
In the middle of the night I was (irritated to be) awoken by the new on-call nurse to give me more IV painkillers. He also offered me a sponge bath, which I politely declined.
In the morning, before family arrived, an occupational therapist visited me and helped me to sit up in a chair next to my bed. All that activity (you know: moving from bed to chair) got me feeling cocky. Then I vomited, and felt sleepy again. Soon I was back in bed.
The day went by fairly uneventfully. In the afternoon, I was visited by a physical therapist. He got me up and walking up and down the hallway, using the IV pole like a rolling cane. I did one lap and lay back down. I was finally able to eat some light food without throwing up. I had some (surprisingly delicious) orange jello, followed by some saltines (eaten, in retrospect, in completely the wrong order as they left my mouth like a dry dry desert).
There was no room yet in the main hospital so I spent another night in the ICU. Again I declined a sponge bath from another helpful male nurse. Again I was irritated to be woken up in the middle of the night to get more meds.
The next day I did some more walking and eating (the food was terrible). Eventually a bed opened up in the main neuro recovery wing and I was moved there. My waves of nausia had passed and I was holding down food OK. The next day I was scheduled to be released, the only hiccup was that after not really eating for a couple days, plus all the narcotic painkillers and subsequent anti-nausia meds, I hadn’t had a bowel movement since before my surgery.
So the friendly nurses loaded me up with Miralax and stool softeners, but no dice. Finally in the evening my nurse gave me a laxative suppository (uncomfortable! and TMI?) and that did the trick. I was given a handful of prescriptions and sent on my way.
My dad dropped me off at home while my mom went to fill my prescriptions.
I proceeded to mostly sleep and watch tv & movies for the next couple of weeks as I recovered. Many friends paid me visits, bringing me more food than I could eat (after fasting for a few days, my appetite was only a shadow of its former self). I received well wishes and gift boxes and cards. All the love really helped when I was stuck at home with strict instructions to take it easy. There’s nothing like dangerous surgery to really feel the love from your friends & family.
Two weeks after surgery I got the staples out of my head and was clear to take ibuprofen again. Yay!
The third week after my surgery brought headaches. I was getting them every day, and having trouble sleeping. I hadn’t had coffee for 4 weeks (I had cut out coffee so I wouldn’t have caffeine headaches after the surgery). But during a particularly painful all-day migraine the third Saturday after my surgery, I was willing to try anything. I drank coffee. I took two of the narcotic painkillers I had been avoiding. I had an ice pack on my neck / head area. I took the max dose of ibuprofen (800mg). Nothing helped, except time. After about 9 hours of excruciating pain, my headache finally subsided.
Since then, headaches have been the only real lasting issue from my surgery. Well headaches, decreased balance, and of course deafness in my left ear.
Wake up, headache. Bend over to tie my shoe, headache. Sneeze? Headache. All day every day — headache. The bright side is they’ve been getting better. It used to be level 5 headache all the time, spiking to level 11 when I was unlucky. Now it’s level 1–2 headache all the time, spiking to level 7 when I’m unlucky, and ibuprofen can actually help a headache like that. So the end is in sight. Hopefully.
I appreciate the concern, good thoughts, prayers and love from all my friends and family (and strangers too!). Keep it coming. You could even keep it coming after I’m fully recovered too, totally acceptable. ☺
