March 27-- Another surprise

The day before I was to return to work, or so I thought, I woke up feeling like I had one of the worst hangovers of my life. Unfortunately, there was something much more ugly going on in my head.  The next sign something wasn’t right was when I stood up from sitting the couch. I became dizzy to the point of falling to the ground.  At that time, we noticed perhaps a little more fluid under the flap. About 3 episodes of Family Feud later, I checked my head, and the damn thing was once again filling up with fluids, but at least at a much slower pace than the major bleed a few weeks prior.  We immediately drove to the ER where the original surgeries were performed.  After a CT scan, it was quickly determined that I needed to be opened up once again to see what was going on inside. Side note: I don’t think it’s ever good when the ER Doc comes in after reading your history and comments on how exciting it is.

Pre operation. Notice swelling, felt very squishy

Post surgery 3, drain on opposite side. I will always be mindful of drain site moving forward

We had two major concerns after the third surgery this month. The first was if the flap could survive being reopened. The second was an infection.  During the surgery, the fluid was found to be a clear liquid similar to serum in a blister, not blood or a puss like liquid typical with infections. The clear liquids and fact that I did not have a fever or high white blood cell count appeared to be good news that there would not be an infection. The surgeon was able to make a relatively small incision in the flap this time around, so it appeared the flap may not have any issues.