Okay everybody, so I’m sort of back. It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but there’s a good reason (for the most part).
I fell off of a roof about two weeks ago (the day before Easter) and landed on my head and back. I cannot remember the 72 hours following the impact at all, but according to the people that I was with at the time, I kept on telling them that I was “fine”. I had a closed head trauma (fractured templar bone) which caused me to bleed from my right ear and nose.
My friends thought that it was just a nose bleed, and I guess I was in shock, so I cleaned up and we went to the beach. Some tourist there seemed to think that I needed some help, so they called the lifeguard over, and he/she called the ambulance. The nearest hospital in my county sent me through a CT Scan (because I wasn’t acting “normal”) to check on everything and discovered that I had a blood clot between my brain and skull near the fractured bone. Unfortunately they did not have a neurosurgeon on staff that day, so they had to traumahawk (first helicopter ride! which I don’t remember at all…) me to St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach to be helped. The surgeons had to shave my head and peel the skin and skull apart in order to remove the blood clot and reduce the swelling in my brain.
I was in the Hospital for 6 or 7 days; 3 of which I remember.
I “woke up” or “came to” not even realizing what had happened, other than the fact that I was in a hospital with a cathedar in my you-know-what and multiple IVs in my arms.
I didn’t even realize that my back was sore until I left the hospital (since I had been taking percocet a couple of times daily, and had a morphine drip before that, and magnesium for the headache).
My mom and sister were visiting family on the West coast of Florida that weekend, so they were a few hours away when I was admitted to the hospitals and a disturbing phone call from a nurse brought them back.
I had 27 staples in my head for about 10 days. The staples have been removed, but the scar will always be there. I cannot hear properly out of my right ear which, according to audiologists, is due to the inner-ear bones being jostled and the eardrum having a small rupture.
I’ve had a physical therapist come to the house every other day for the past week to massage my back and tell me which exercises to do. She seems to think that it may be something other than a muscle in my back that is causing the back pains, but I don’t really think she knows what she’s talking about (telling me to stretch different parts of my body, only rubbing my back for 15 minutes every other day, telling me that my kidney is hurt, etc.) There is no urine in my blood and my mom used to teach Yoga (she still takes yoga and tai chi and meditates regularly) so I think she knows what she’s talking about. I, the one experiencing the pain, know that the pain is in the latissimus dorsi (muscle along the spine) between the 10th & 12th thoracic and 1st lumbar vertebrae; a small area that really hurts when I move.
My jaw also hurts occasionally on the right-hand side.
We think that I’m basically fine, but nobody is totally sure yet. Time will tell, but my back is the only thing that really hurts. I don’t have any more percocet and I cannot take ibuprofin until the results of my CT scan on Friday (04/11/08) because it may cause more bleeding in the brain, so all I have is tylenol, ice, heat, and massages.
All in all, I’ve been doing nothing. Sitting around the house, watching daytime TV, surfing the internet, stretching, and eating. Eating a lot.
If anyone has anything to say about anything… I’ll listen…
I’ll be around.
Luckily I didn’t die or get paralyzed, totally lose my hearing or other senses, and people care.
.