LUMBAR PUNCTURE
Thursday Morning I checked into Woodland Hospital as 8:15 am, a nurse handed my Dad a pager and took me back to be prepped for my lumbar puncture, cerebral-spinal fluid pressure check and drainage of the fluid to relieve pressure.
By 8:30am I was laid out on a gurney with an IV in my left wrist, auto blood pressure cuff on my right arm and pulse rate monitor on my left finger. They paged Dad and allowed him to sit with me until 9 ish when they rolled me into the procedure room.
Here I was laid on my left side and contorted into an unusual position, made to hold very still, with no pain meds and fully awake, as they repeated jabbed a needle into my back and tried to get it thru into the spinal canal. Each time I’d yell Ouch or some exclamation of pain and the doctor(s) would ask me “LEFT or RIGHT?” to figure out what part of the vertebra bone or spinal nerve they have just jabbed. My legs began to cramp and quiver so I asked a nurse to hold them so I would not move. Finally After 10-15 excruciatingly painful needle jabs they finally got it in.
The Doctor attached the manometer (fluid pressure gauge) confirmed the pressure was too high, 270 proceeded to drip drain 4 tubes of fluid, that were promptly sent off the lab. Checked my pressure again, it was still higher than normal. She proceeded to drain a little more, checked it again it was still high, 260. My neurologist wanted it down to 200 but at this time the operating physician felt they needed to stop because I had been on the table for about 2 hours. So the 7 inch needle was withdrawn from my spinal canal, I was rolled back onto the gurney and sent to the recovery room to rest for an hour to allow the hole(s) in my spine to seal.
In recovery a pair of Nurses proceeded to take a blood sample from me and only got 1/3 of a tube after 2 tries and the veins collapsing both time but they sent it off to the lab anyway. Then they paged my father to come sit with me the remaining 30 minutes before my release. When he came in his face was rather pale and he looked shook up. That’s when he proceeded to tell me he had been freaking out because they told him my procedure would be 20 min to an hour, he had been waiting 2 and half hours, and thought something major had gone wrong, like they had severed my spinal cord or nerves or ruptured something. SO he was very glad I was fine even though I had to go thru such painful ordeal.
While waiting in recovery we noticed an interesting thing; my blood pressure went from like 146/101 to 121/67. I guess draining some of that cerebral-spinal fluid out was helping my high blood pressure too?
After my hour in recovery was up a nurse took out my IV, removed the BP cuff and the pulse monitor. They sent my dad for my car, had me sign another release form so I could receive copies of MY OWN medical records. The wheeled me to the elevator and down to 1st floor and outside to Dad and my car.
I was there from 8:15am till 12:00pm. I was supposed to be out by 10 am. Nothing is ever easy with me. 
I’ve spent most of the weekend resting, laying down or reclining. Rob spent Thursday night and Friday with me to keep me company. He enjoyed keeping me in bed, having lots of snuggle time. My back is still very sore, the spinal nerves they “nicked” are causing spasms of pain and periodic numbness down my legs and butt and I have been getting nasty “low pressure” headache when I am up very long. So I’m trying to take it easy, spend more time layign down than up and not pick up anything even slightly heavy. The doctor warned that could reopen the hole and leak more fluid, very very bad to do.
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