Saturday

Still no sleep.

The doctor came in and talked to us for a good 15 minutes or more. He said that after going over my MRI from the night before and comparing them to pre- and post- surgery MRI's that the area where he did the surgery looks perfect. He may even use it in lectures. After all of my new symptoms and consulting with the other doctors in the practice and going over my scans again, they've concluded that I have Chiari Malformation. I picked that particular website because it was the first one I read and I have every symptom listed with the exception of 1. It kind of shocked me when I read it because some of them I didn't realize were related and hadn't even mentioned to my doctor. He said that my symptoms may resolve themselves once my spinal fluid builds back up or he may (as a last resort) have to go in and correct the problem. He then discharged me and told me I could go home. We got out to the car, got buckled in, and started to pull away when the nurse comes running out of the hospital and tells me that my blood cultures came back showing infection and that I have to come back in and have a PICC line inserted so I can have IV's at home.

I'm re-admitted to the hospital and have the PICC line inserted. I would also like to insert here that when I went to the ER I asked for one since I knew it would save me a lot of pain, but they said no and I ended up being stuck with a needle lots and lots of times. A caseworker came to my room and said she was trying to verify that my insurance would pay for home health and get someone to come out to my house and set everything up for the IV's. Since it was a weekend and a holiday, no luck there. The hospital could verify my insurance but Home Health couldn't verify my insurance until Monday and the hospital would not send me home without an IV. So I get to chill at the hospital for 2 more days so I can get an IV every 8 hours.

I sleep about 4 hours Saturday night.