I’m on the mend but still not 100%. Here's a longer version of what's been happening my way since New Year's Eve. I had a spinal tap in the ER on New Year’s Eve, and then unbeknownst to me my spinal fluid continued to drip, and that made me feel absolutely awful, as in I could not sit or stand without feeling, without exaggeration, that the end might be near. So, I returned to the ER on Wednesday, and they told me I was one of ten taps that continues to drip, and if I wasn’t feeling better on the morrow, I should return for a procedure called a blood patch, essential a spinal infusion. Dreadful, no?
I returned the next evening, four evenings after my spinal tap, and had a pretty awful experience with a doctor who shall remain nameless but who started injecting me with Lidocaine in my back with no warning, before I was in position. I was stupefied! He did the procedure in the end but not before the intervention of one of the ER doctors. This fellow was from anesthesiology. Then my blood pressure dropped and they kept me overnight in the ER, awful, the sounds, people vomiting, arias of pain, a child screaming in fear or pain or both. Danteesque. I ended up spending the better part of a week in bed or at the ER. That weakens a gal. This afternoon, I see an ENT specialist for the middle ear infection I’ve had for a month. I plan to travel tomorrow, to Amherst, by train, thank goodness. But darn, the Emily Dickinson House is closed for the winter. That’s disappointing.
Funnily, I saw my neighborhood fortune teller on New Year’s Day, in Starbucks, before I started feeling the ill effects of the spinal tap, and then again two days later, in the Safeway. The second time, I told her I was having medical issues, and she told me, right there in the produce section, that she’d say a blessing for me for $10. And she did, right in front of the mushrooms and sweet peppers.
I just entered a sweeps for a six-day cruise on the QE2. I’m not a cruise person, but I wouldn’t mind winning this one, if only for the historical antecedents.
To enter, click HERE. The deadline is February 10.
A few items: The trip includes balcony stateroom accommodation, meals and entertainment. Available voyage dates include April 18, 24, 30, May 18, September 4, 22, October 7, 13, 19, 25. The ARV is steep at $8,800.