My Cavernous Malformation - Return to the Hospital

It was not fun staying in the Intensive Care unit, so I was thrilled to go home. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law came from Seattle to come help us and to make sure that we weren't alone. They're cool people, and I was excited to hang out with them. I was supposed to be taking it easy, but I felt perfectly normal besides the speaking. I didn't do anything that strenuous that night. We went grocery shopping, played some light frisbee and then I had a headache and went to bed a little early around 9pm.

When I woke up around 2pm the next day, I had an unbearable migraine. I just wanted to sleep. Someone called the hospital and told them about my symptoms. The hospital said that that was not good and that I needed to go in immediately, and they'd move my surgery for tomorrow, instead of the following Tuesday, which was like 5 days. They were originally going to wait more time because I was more stable.

It wasn't fun being stuck in the Intensive Care again, getting my blood drawn every hour, nurses asking me what my name and what the date was even though I couldn't respond, but my head hurt so bad, I barely remember anything. I got strong pain medication, but it still hurt and the meds made my very nauseous. I couldn't sleep very well. I just wanted the night to be over. I was going to have surgery the next morning, around 7am. I wasn't very nervous for surgery at that moment. The migraine was so intense that I just wanted it to go away.

I was nervous for one last brain imaging scan they wanted to do, which involved sticking a rod into my groin that extended up my torso that shot out ink that would flow through my brain. Just sticking anything into my groin sounded painful. Which should have been a small concern to the concept of brain surgery, where they make an incision in your head, rip out a chunk of your skull, remove stuff that shouldn't be next to your brain, and patch you up together again. Luckily, they knocked me out for the test, and I didn't remember anything until I came to after the surgery.