You will some day work at Wal-Mart for FIVE years………Wal-mart? That store is tacky.

I’ve just about exhausted the subject of my infamous “brain fart”, but there are a couple of parts to the story I would like to add…

After reading my other two installments, my family (the kids) thought of a couple of things I kept saying that they considered very funny. When I asked my DH what caused the problem with my brain, he would patiently explain (again) about our having “relations” and that I got one of my headaches…to which I would reply cleverly (every time), “Must not have been too memorable then!” He probably found that amusing the first dozen times I said it. The other thing I kept obsessing about and asking periodically was, I would look at my DH and ask, “We don’t have any insurance, do we?” He would patiently reply (again and again), “No, we don’t have any insurance.” To which I would roll my eyes and heave a big sigh….every time. Just stick the knife in and twist it, hon….again. Poor DH, he really did go through a lot that day.

After all the tests and several hours, the neurologist on call came in to discuss the “probable” diagnosis with us. Now, at this point I’m beginning to come out of it somewhat, but I was having trouble (still) grasping what people were telling me, and they had given me something with codeine  to help my headache, which always makes me loopy. Anyway, he was probably in his 60′s, had a very thick Polish accent and loved to hear himself spout big medical terms in his thick Polish accent. I thought it was just me, but DH had trouble understanding him too. He kept asking questions to try to get the doctor to clarify and tell us in layman’s terms what had happened, but he really wasn’t very helpful (a couple of weeks ago, five months later mind you, we received a bill from this doctor for $200…he must have charged per big word). We found out several days later what he was talking about from an AMERICAN doctor, who spoke plain English to us! More about him in a minute…

I don’t remember the ride home or getting on the bed to go back to sleep…I was doped up pretty good with the codeine. I woke up about midnight from the drug induced stupor (DH was probably really glad to have me quiet for a while!), and I remember looking at the bandage…arm? hand? I can’t remember now…realizing that I’d had an IV. I got up and looked in the mirror at the bandage on my back where they had done the spinal tap…the spot was a little bruised. Looking at that evidence is the only way I could grasp what had happened. It still felt like some crazy dream. DH came and laid down on the bed with me and we talked for over an hour about the whole incident and he told me all about it one more time, and this time I was able to retain the information, but it still just didn’t seem REAL to me. It was like listening to a story about someone else. That’s just the weirdest feeling I’ve ever had. It’s not the same as being under anesthesia during a surgery or something…you’re there and awake, and yet you can’t remember it no matter how hard your brain works on it.

The next morning I sent a text to my kids and my friend D, letting them know I was better…then immediately sent it again (hey, that was DH’s idea). D found it hilarious, but my kids didn’t think it was too funny….hmmm, payback’s not quite as much fun, is it?? Over the next several days, I was treated like I was going to break by my family…DH wouldn’t even let me stay at the house alone for a couple of days, which I thought was sweet but unnecessary. I was pampered and catered to, though, which was very nice. The icky part was that if I got up for more than 10 minutes at a time, I would feel extremely nauseated, so most of the time I had to lay flat out. I HATED THAT!!!

We were concerned enough about it that DH called the neurologist’s office, that we had appointment for on Friday, and they went ahead and fit me in on Wednesday. That was very accommodating of them. The doctor was so nice, and asked me a bunch of questions about my history with the headaches, then told me what his diagnosis was…he totally agreed with the Polish doctor, but explained it in a way that we (sort of) could understand. You know, the brain is still a mystery to the medical community in many ways, so they give you their opinion as best they can…The doctor said that the “thunderclap” headache happens when a small blood vessel in the brain constricts (or spasms) and cuts off the circulation of blood momentarily. When it cuts off that flow, it affects my short-term memory causing me to not be able to retain new information for a while (which also explained to me what happened to a lesser degree 3 years ago). But this one was troubling because it lasted so much longer. The doctor said that the problem is, if it happens where the constriction lasts longer than a minute or two, it could become a stroke instead of a glitch. He prescribed Norvasc, which is a “blocker” for those kinds of spasms, but also helps control blood pressure (since mine was still running a little high). My sister also take this drug, as she gets those “spasms” in her heart. Well, I have since had to stop taking it due to some unpleasant side effects, like heart palpitations…oh well.

Oh, by the way, the severe nausea was from the spinal tap. They didn’t tell us ANY possible after-effects from that in the hospital. The neurologist told us that sometimes when they do a spinal tap, a little bit of spinal fluid leaks out of the site where they do it, so the pressure is off. It takes time for that lost fluid to build back up and we could speed up the process by me drinking….get this….caffeine. He prescribed me drinking a bunch of caffeine! I thought that was the easiest thing ever! Of course, since I normally drink NO caffeine, I was completely hyper and couldn’t sleep for several days, but the nausea completely went away about 3 days after that, so it was all good.

Believe me when I say that DH has been CONCERNED about this happening again…it’s not an impossibility. It has taken time to convince him that I’m not going to drop dead of a stroke whenever we…….ummmm…..kiss.  THIS is one of the reasons I have been trying to get healthier and lose weight. If I can keep my blood pressure down to a normal level, that will go a long way to preventing this happening. But you never know, do you?

Two words I will NEVER be able to use again without thinking of March 27, 2009………LOOP and SURREAL……..

Losing a day might sound romantic to some, I suppose, even adventurous or mysterious…I found it to be merely disorienting and worrisome. But my family, however, found it very entertaining. You see, I was on a loop, asking the same questions (about 10 or so, DH said) over and over, starting the round about every minute to two minutes. Remember “ten-second Tom” from the movie, Fifty First Dates? Well, my kids were calling me “one-minute Mom.”

What day is it? Sunday. Where are we? At the hospital. What was I doing that you felt you had to bring me here? Asking a lot of questions over and over,  just like you’re doing now. What year is it? 2009. And so on, and so on.

Sometimes they could distract me with another subject. My DD would ask me if I remembered her husband or my DS would ask if I remembered that he and his wife were expecting their first baby in June. But I would always come back to the loop. Sometimes I would even go off on another line of questions and get their hopes up that I was coming out of it, but no. I would come back to the loop. I even said once or twice that I felt like I was waking up from a weird dream, which fooled them the first time…then I said that again later…and again…and again. (The other day I commented to my DH that my mother had repeated the same question 3 times in about 10 minutes, and I guess I knew how they felt with me….he said, “Try 300 times and you’ll get closer).

The fact was that I wasn’t able to create new memory for awhile, so any questions they answered I promptly forgot. So I would ask again. Several times they would encourage me to just relax and rest, but my brain was having none of that. It was working overtime trying to understand what was going on, what was happening to me. Part of the morning, I kept thinking we were back in California (we’ve only been in Boise 3 years), but then I would look at my friend sitting there holding my hand and say, “No, D is here, that means we’re in Idaho”. She helped keep me grounded at least in the right state! Sometimes when I would ask a question, one of them would turn it around and say, for instance, “What year do you think it is?” My DD said that more often than not I got it right, even though I was guessing. So somewhere in there, my brain knew the answers to most of my questions. But it sure was confused.

One of the most interesting aspects of the whole thing was that when I would ask a question or answer one, I would have the exact same inflections, facial expressions, and pauses each and every time. My youngest DS (16 at the time), who loves messing with my head when I’m all there anyway, tried a couple of times to convince me that he was nineteen, and married with a child. I would say, “Really??? (pause) Noooooooo. (with a smile, like, you silly)” They said I reacted the same way every time. I really did feel like I was dreaming (I remember THAT feeling), and I would say that it felt so surreal (they said that was my favorite word of the day). Sometimes I would say, “It just feels so……(groping for word)” and youngest DS would say, “Does it feel surreal, Mom?”. I would open my eyes really wide and say, “YES! It feels surreal!” Like, wow, how did you know what word I was looking for…that’s exactly the right word!  He got such a kick out of that, it never grew old for him. Two words I’ll never be able to use again without thinking about that day…”loop” and “surreal”.

I’m happy to report that my family says I was unfailingly cheerful and nice the whole day. I’m glad that I didn’t embarrass myself by being mean or cussing or anything. That would have just been too mortifying. Telling people about the circumstances of the “glitch” is blush-worthy enough.

Soon to come…the arrogant, incomprehensible Polish neurologist, trying to grasp what happened to me, and the aftermath of a spinal tap…

Ever lose a whole day? (drug addicts and alcoholics are exempt from this question)  Neither had I. I pray I never repeat the experience, although I won’t hold my breath…

What I’m about to recount is true, if I can trust my family (which I do). I cannot verify the veracity of the account other than the bits and pieces of dreamlike reality that I actually remember. The rest of the story is what my family and a good friend told me happened. It’s so weird when a whole day of your life has to be told to you by someone else…you lived it, yet you don’t remember it. I don’t like that feeling…nossir, I don’t like it one bit.

Let me start by saying that I had a similar “episode” on, of all days, the day my son got married, December 29, 2006. I was very fuzzy in the head and couldn’t seem to keep hold of new information that day for about 3 hours. I kept having to look at the calendar to see what the day and date was, but I remember knowing it was right after Christmas. When given the directions over the phone to the courthouse where they were to be married, I just couldn’t grasp the information and got very upset. It was very scary for me, but I chalked it up to peri-menopausal brain “fog”, since my sisters had both experienced something similar during menopause. Still, I remember how it felt and I remember the day, as a whole. This last time, zilch, zippo, nada, not a thing for about 6 hours and pretty fuzzy about the next 6 (of course that was partly due to the drugs they gave me). The doctor told me that most of it would probably come back to me except for about half an hour, but it never has…

It all started with…let me be delicate here…relations with my DH on a Sunday morning. I wouldn’t even mention that AT ALL, except that it is an important fact, due to it being the REASON for the whole mess to begin with! Right after…ahem…climax, I grabbed my head and said it hurt really bad. [Note: I have had these headaches rarely but regularly scattered throughout our marriage...averaging about once a year. They are called "post-coital" or "thunderclap" headaches, the latter because they happen suddenly, hurt really bad and then go away just as quickly. I'm not sure how common they are. DH told the doctor that this one lasted longer than usual, a couple of minutes.] After showering, DH’s first clue to there being something wrong was when he asked me about a cut on my finger and I couldn’t remember how I did it. Then I started asking the same questions over and over again, like what day it was and did we have sex and did I take a shower???

He became concerned enough that he called my sister and her husband to ask if they thought he should take me to the hospital (I have a vague picture of him talking on the phone and pacing around the room). They said definitely, so he began the difficult process of getting me dressed. You see, I wanted to ask my questions and I was so consumed by them that I wasn’t putting my clothes on. He finally got frustrated enought to tell me to PLEASE get dressed, I could ask my questions in the car…..huf-fy! I find all this very funny now (since it’s like a silly story to me that happened to someone else), but DH still doesn’t find it that amusing. He was really scared I was having a stroke or something.

The details of the next few hours I have no clue about, other than we went to the hospital, ALL our kids showed up, and my good friend, “D”, from church. DH must have called one of the kids and told them to pass it along to each other, and he called D’s house to let them know we wouldn’t be at worship (and to announce it for prayers probably). Anyway, they ran alllllllllllllllll kinds of tests at the hospital to rule out stroke and heart attack and anything else they could think of…full blood work-up, CT scan, and even did a spinal tap…don’t remember why on that one. This is where I’m glad my memory was messed up…apparently they’re very painful, and DH said they had to poke me several times to find the right spot. I can cheerfully say I don’t remember that pain at all! But nothing came back abnormal, other than my blood pressure being high, which I personally think was significant.

Coming soon…the incomprehensible Polish neurologist’s diagnosis and random things Ann says when she’s having a “brain fart” (plus, the sicko family and friend make fun of the poor brain-damaged patient).

So there’s this kidney stone, see? And it’s stuck in the bend of my ureter (that’s the tiny little tube connecting my kidney to my bladder). And if it won’t go anywhere, then we have a problem.

Okay, the emergency room doctor sent me home with a prescription for a strong painkiller and a strainer…you want me to what??? Yes, they told me to drink lots of water and strain my pee, so I could see if I passed the little booger. Now you have to remember, I think I’m looking for a grain of sand (albeit a large grain). Then I’m supposed to go see a urologist within a week. I didn’t have any more severe pain, just some mild twinges…I was thankful for small favors.

First off, how much is “lots” of water? A gallon? 10 gallons? I just know I was doing a lot of straining over the next week, constantly on the lookout for the elusive stone. I would dutifully put my face as close to that strainer as I felt comfortable doing and look and look, but I didn’t see anything. Finally, after several days, I saw a couple of teeny tiny pieces of something hard (I know this because I rubbed it between my fingers…felt like sand), and I put them in the little vial they gave me, hoping that was the end of it. HA! Not even close.

When I went to see the urologist, they put me with a Physician Assistant. Now normally I would feel uncomfortable with a PA when we’re discussing something serious about my body, but this guy was pretty cute, so he must know what he’s talking about, right? Plus, he assured me right off the bat that the actual doctor was right there in the building and had looked at the scan and was “on the case”. Fine, as long as he’s close by for questions I guess we’re okay…did I mention this guy was cute? I said that the ER doctor said the stone was 2-3 mm, and he replied, “Oh, it’s a good solid 3.” I wondered if I should be proud or worried…

They had taken a urine sample when I first arrived…I’ll bet that’s pretty standard procedure at a urologist’s office, I wonder if they have little cups sitting on their toilets at home?…and when the PA came in he said I had a little blood in my urine which indicates the stone is still there. I proudly (yet tentatively) showed my vial to him, he took a quick glance at it and said, “That’s not it.” He told me that was grit or sand that often accompanies a stone or perhaps breaks off the stone. So I asked, “Okay, I’m still a little fuzzy here. What EXACTLY am I looking for?” I mean, with all this straining I was doing, I sure didn’t want to miss the little sucker when it finally made an appearance. I had a party all planned and everything.

He drew a little diagram, showing me the kidney, the ureter (and how skinnyit is), and the bladder, and where my stone was stuck in the bend of the ureter. Then he showed me a centimeter and where 3 millimeters measured on that (I get it…I should have known that already…it’s been a long time since high school and the metric system, okay?), then he drew a little circle to show the approximate size…that sucker looked HUGE. “So you see,” he said with a smile, “you won’t miss it when you see it.” Now my mind is reeling with the thought of passing that thing. NO WONDER men have so much pain passing them…eeeeeeeeek! Well, at least I wouldn’t have to put my face right next to the strainer any more. He assured me that most of the pain associated with kidney stones was when it passed through the ureter. Once it drops into the bladder, no more pain. I was skeptical to say the least…

But that wasn’t the end of the conversation…nooooooo. He went on to tell me that 3mm was a fairly large stone; they worry about the ability to pass one at 5mm. He told me that if I hadn’t passed the stone in another 2 weeks they would have to think about breaking it up with a laser or something…at that point I pretty much quit listening because our insurance was going to run out the next day, literally. I mentioned that fact, and he said not to worry about it right now, and most people pass their stones within a couple of weeks (but some can go as long as six months…oh, joy). Then he gave me a prescription for FloMax…an old-man drug! He said it helped older men with prostate problems because it caused the ureters to open up more to allow better flow, and it might help in my situation. Great, I’ll probably start growing hair out my ears now… Oh yeah, and he also told me I wasn’t drinking enough…sheesh!

So I went home, and drank and drank and peed and peed and strained and strained for the next two weeks. Ah yes, fun times.  I talked to a nurse friend of mine, who told me to try pure cranberry juice, which sometimes helps break up kidney stones. I dutifully went to Fred Meyer and bought a bottle…expensive sucker! Not even a very big bottle and it was almost 7 bucks! Someone else said to try lemon juice, but being the brain that I am I thought, “Citrus is citrus…I’ll try grapefruit juice.” Hmmmm. I went on the Internet to see if there was something else I could be doing, eating, drinking to help speed up this process, and the first site I went to had in big bold letters, “IF YOU ARE PRONE TO KIDNEY STONES, DO NOT DRINK GRAPEFRUIT JUICE.” Apparently, grapefruit juice actually causes stones to form more frequently or something…oh just great, that’s a big waste of a couple of bucks. At least I hadn’t drunk any of it yet!

To shorten the story just a tad, I ended up peeing and straining for a month total, and never any sign of  that STUPID kidney stone. The doctor did an x-ray, which showed nothing (but was cheaper than a scan since I didn’t have any insurance). I showed a little blood in the urine the next visit too…but I made the decision NOT to have any procedures and I went home and threw the strainer away (my DH wasn’t too thrilled with that decision, but by then I had had ENOUGH). Whatever happens, happens. I just wasn’t going to think about it any more.

A year + later and no problems. I probably passed the stinker and never saw it, sneaky little thing. But still, every time I get a little twinge in my lower back, I wonder…

Ever had a kidney stone? Neither had I. I pray I never do again.

(Cue flashback music) It all started last summer, not long after we moved across town. I had recently quit my job to stay home full time (except for running all sorts of errands and taxi service for my family of course), and I began having some discomfort (pain) in my “nether” regions. This actually went on for a couple of weeks, and it was discomfort I was not familiar with, so I was getting ready to plan to soon go to the doctor, probably…hey, it wasn’t really hurting that bad or anything. I figured it was some kind of minor infection or something. But I knew I would have to go soon, because my insurance was going to run out in about 10 days!

One Wednesday evening, right when my DH and I were getting to the church building for mid-week Bible study, I started having more of that discomfort (okay, urethra area), so I paused at the water fountain to take a couple of Tylenol. Right after I swallowed them, I mean RIGHT AFTER…must have been the water…I started having a twinge in my back. Well, I went to sit down on that relatively hard pew (although padded, still very firm), and the crowd was pretty light that night. Everyone notices when you come in (late) and then leave again pretty quick. And I did, boy. In about 2 minutes, I couldn’t sit on that pew any more. I whispered to my DH, “I’m in some pretty bad discomfort here…I need to leave now.” He gave me kind of a funny look (probably because I never say things like that!) and we got up and left, right in the middle of the first song……That got some looks, let me tell you, especially from my kids! Our DD followed us out of the building, wanting to know what was going on and DH told her I was in pain and we were going to go to Rapid Care (right by our house, 3 minutes away), and he’d call later.

So we headed off in that direction. Now sitting still and breathing normally were getting harder by the minute, and I was beginning to wonder if it was my kidney, because the pain was in the “right lower quadrant” of my back and really radiating from one spot. We talked as we drove…I’m still coherent at this point…and decided that maybe we should just head to the emergency room since the pain was getting worse, and we had no experience with this. Luckily, the hospital was less than 10 minutes away, but it WAS a little like being in labor…I was feeling every bump in the road and I was trying to concentrate on slow controlled breathing instead of the shallow panting I wanted to do. The ride seemed ENDLESS, and somewhere along the way I started feeling nauseated too (oh great), so I had the air conditioning blasting in my face (usually helps).

DH let me off at the curb, and parked the car quickly. We checked in at the front desk where everyone has to start, and by this time I’m leaned over on the counter, with my head on my arm, answering questions from that position…please, oh please, just give me drugs, please, oh please, oh please…luckily they weren’t too busy and got me into a cubicle right away, asking me questions about the pain and bustling around taking my blood pressure, temp, all that stuff. Blood pressure and pulse elevated (ya’ THINK???), temperature normal.

Let me interject here a thought or two about pain charts…you know, the ones in the emergency room and in most doctor’s offices now. Rating your pain from 1 – 10, with the smiley and not-so-smiley and crying faces to go along with the numbers. I’ve always thought those charts were a pretty good idea for people who don’t speak English, or children, or people who are NOT in a LOT of pain…but to a person who is sobbing and kicking the table and screaming, perhaps you shouldn’t try to make them put a number to it…I’m just sayin’. That wasn’t me…no, no…I’m a fairly quiet sufferer (to this point in my life). I’ve always tried very hard to stay in control and not say or do anything unladylike…well, I AM from the south, after all…but I have a feeling looking at that chart many times, that I’ve never reached a “10″ yet. Or maybe I just have a high threshold of pain…who knows. Anyway, when they asked me to look at that chart and pick a number describing the amount of pain, I had trouble picking…I am a very indecisive person and that’s just too many choices! Now if it was a scale of 1-5, maybe… I think I went with an “8″.  I try hard to be fair and accurate!

But here’s the thing…right after they started an IV,  the pain disappeared. Yep, about as quick as it started it eased off and totally stopped. Noooww I felt really silly. I had been in severe distress for about 45 minutes! So then I start thinking, hmmmm, maybe it was just bad gas! They did some kind of scan…a CT, I think. We discussed other things it could be while we waited for the results. But sure enough, kidney stone, about 3mm which the NURSE said was about the size of a large grain of sand (mmm, try more like a pea, dufus, a spiky little pea).

Okay, I’m tired….more of this KS saga later!