Tuesday 23 February 2010

Touch

Last night I had to stand on the sidelines and watch my touch footy team lose the grand final. I probably wouldn't have made a difference, but it's frustrating not being able to participate, even to offer a fresh set of legs. On the positive side, I had a few beers afterwards and my blood pressure wasn't a problem, so hopefully that's a good sign.
One week until I'm back to the neurosurgeon - hopefully I can start physio soon.

Saturday 20 February 2010

Dizzy

I've noticed that while I've mentioned dizzy spells, I've never talked about them in detail. While recovering from my second operation, for the first few days I noticed that when i got up i'd be dizzy for a while and would often have to sit back down until the sensation passed and I could try again. This only lasted a few days, and was chalked up to being a side effect of the operation.
Several months passed, and I was enjoying my recovery. I was at the point where I was playing sport again, and exercising with friends. Every Wednesday morning I'd meet some friends at a local beach, and we'd run a self-organised boot-camp style fitness session. I really enjoyed these for the variation, the scenery and the company. One morning though, after completing a particularly tough set of sand sprints I got dizzy, my vision darkened and I had to sit down. The feeling passed after a minute or so and I continued on with some light exercise, attributing the episode to dehydration and exercising on an empty stomach.
A week or so later it happened again. And then the strange thing happened. I was getting the symptoms at strange times - most commonly after very intense exercise, but other times after drinking alcohol, having a heavy meal or just getting up. Sometimes the symptoms would vary, and I'd get tingling in my arms or a ringing in my ears. During some of my worst episodes I'd feel like I couldn't move my limbs, or my vision would grow so dark I could barely see in front of me. I still recall one episode where I was working in Melbourne and had walked from the hotel into work early and was trying to have a conversation with a colleague in the next cubicle despite barely being able to see him.

The most frustrating thing about all this was that it occured inconsistently. Sometimes I would go weeks without any issues, at other times I'd have several days in a row of intense symptoms. Because of this, I'd often put of going to the doctor. when I finally did go, my GP ordered a whole raft of tests. Blood sugar? Fine. Cholestorol? Fine. Kidney function? Fine. Liver function? (Surprisingly) fine. Blood pressure? Fine - in both arms nonetheless. ECG? All clear. As I was visiting neurosurgeon soon after, my GP handballed over to him on the suspicion it had something to do with my neck. My neurosurgeon passed me on to a cardiologist to make sure I had nothing wrong with my heart, and on came another round of tests. Another ECG. An ultrasound of my heart. A heart stress test on a treadmill. All came up clear - it looks like I was in another one of my 'clear' spells. In desperation for some sort of result, they even gave me a portable ECG to wear while I played touch footy. No dice - everything was fine.

Returning to my follow up appoinment with the cardiologist, he told me it was most likely my blood pressure was having problems regulating itself due to damage to the associated nerve centres in my spine. This was causing me to have the bouts of low blood pressure. He gave me a list of things likely to trigger an episode (exercise, heat, alcohol, heavy meals, sitting on stools, getting up quickly, etc) and all of sudden, looking back, what had seemed like a series of random events followed a pattern. The funny bit followed - he gave me the opposite advice of most of his patients: increase my salt intake and drink more caffeine. That and keep my fluid levels up. Because I'm young and active, the salt and caffeine help keep my blood pressure up and don't substantially add to my current risk of heart disease. This was great news, as I now knew what I could do to avoid the onset of an attack, and what measures I could take to reduce its intensity.

All of this brings me back to today. Since my lst op, I've been having dizzy spells pretty regularly, nearly on a daily basis, and affecting me all day sometimes. It'll be interesting to see what the doctor says about it whe I visit him next week. Here's hoping it's temporary...

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Ups and Downs

It's been an interesting few days, with plenty of ups and downs. For starters, my wound wasn't healing well and ended up inflamed and leaking some pus, which means I've been on antibiotics and still need a dressing on my wound. It looks a lot healthier than when this happened after my last op though, and my GP seemed happy with it when I saw him today so I'm not too worried.
Over the weekend, while messing around to try and see how much sensation I'd lost in my left hand I did a comparison to my right hand. Given that I've had sensation problems (pins and needles, numbness, lack of temperature sensation) with my right hand for about 10 years now, I was surprised that it felt pretty close to normal. For ages I had had an uncomortable feeling similar to pins and needles whenever touching anything with that hand but now, it was gone. I think it's slightly numb, but I can definitely feel things, and am not experiencing discomfort doing it. This is really good thing. If I can just get the movement and some strength back I'm hopeful that it can one day be my dominant hand again.
This was tempered by my return to work on Monday. In retrospect, going into the office 2 weeks after my op wasn't the best of ideas. After working half a day my back and neck were a twisted, screaming knot of muscle. I barely slept through the night s every time I moved something tugged in my back and woke me. A day of rest with some hotpacks helped a fair bi though, and I'm going to ease back into it and work from home as much as possible for the next few weeks.
I also managed to walk a bit over 2 kilometres today. Given that a week ago I needed to rest for 15 minutes after walking 500 metres or so, I think it's a pretty good sign my fitness is coming back. Also, my dizzy spells aren't occuring as often or with the same intensity so I'd have to say that overall things are going pretty well at the moment.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Return Pt 2

With my hand function greatly diminished and the deteriation in my leg, my best option to stop things getting worse was to have a small tube inserted into my spinal cord that would allow the cyst to drain. unfortunately this meant more surgery, but also offered some hope that things would get better when the pressure caused by the cyst was relieved. The most depressig aspect was that ten years ago the original intent had been to install a shunt, but they hadn't done it because removing the scar tissue seemed to have a positive effect during the op.

My operation went as planned, although I was disappointed to discover I had numbness in the index finger and thumb of my left, "good" hand. My Dr indicated this was from where the shunt was attached outside my spinal cord, and he was unsure how much this would recover. Despite my overall good health, this was quite frustrating as with the lack of sensation, movement and strength in my right hand I'm extremely dependent on my left.
Hospitals aren't great places for young people to spend time. Once again, I spent most of my time in hospital trying to get out, and despite only spending three nights there (the first in post-operative fugue) I practically bolted out of the place.

I'm now at home recovering, dealing with increased incidence of my dizzy spells, tiredness and am carefuly watching my hands for improvement. it's frustrating feeling fine but getting exhausted after being up and about for only a few minutes. At least my left hand has picked up some sensation, but is still not right. Looks like I may have a few more burns ahead of me...

Tuesday 9 February 2010

A Return; or: How I Got Sick Again

I'd let this blog lie fallow for years, not seeing the need to revisit until today. This was because I was looking for some means of comparison to my current recovery to my last one. Yes, my current recovery - a little over a week ago I had spinal surgery for the third time in my life.
In the last year I'd experienced some new symptoms and some worsening of others. I destroyed 2 pairs of shoes because my right leg would often scrape the ground while running. The strength and movement in my right hand had decreased considerably, and my hand often curled up so it was useless, a club at the end of my arm. Getting scans and seeing the neurosurgeon showed that the cyrinx in my neck was once again filled with fluid and was putting pressure on my spinal cord - my original problem from ten years earlier was back and causing brand new problems.

Typing at the moment is tough for more, so more later on what happened...