Trauma

My doctors have traumatized me.  I now have a fear of staple guns.  That's right I said staple guns.


In a period of six months, I had to have my head stapled two times while being fully conscious.  One of those times was without anesthetics.  The second time I did receive numbing injections but they are also painful because the doctor has to move the needle around to distribute the medication.


The first head stapling was in the E.R..  The physician actually apologized for having to do that and said he would never want that done to him.  He was so upset that the on-call neurosurgeon instructed him to do that that he ran out of the room when it was done.  My mother was with me for this one and it traumatized her having to watch that being done to her daughter.


The second time was when I was hospitalized in December and the ventriculostomy was being removed.  My ICU nurse warned me that my neurosurgeon requested a staple gun just in case it was needed.  I started panicking when I saw it in the package.  It is just a miniature version of a regular staple gun. 


Ultimately I did have to be stapled 5 times.  The sound of the gun is so unnerving and the pain is, well, just shocking.  The first one is incredibly painful and after that you are in so much shock that everything goes numb.


I never want to see a staple gun again.


I don't want to have my head re-sewn up while fully conscious either.  I also had that done two times in a six month period.  The first time my regular surgeon talked to me the whole time and kept asking if I was okay.  I was really comforted by that because I was extremely nervous about it being done.


The second time was a little more traumatic.  It was at 1:30 am and my numbing injections didn't work.  I couldn't take the trauma anymore and literally had a breakdown.


During this same six month period I leaked CSF out of the incision on the right side of my head many times for various reasons.  You can't even imagine how horrible it is to have your own brain fluid leak out of your head and down your neck and shoulder. 


When my valve had a crack in it, the CSF was pouring out of my head like a faucet.  My husband saw it when we were in the E.R. waiting to have emergency surgery and he hasn't forgotten it.  Seeing your wife's brain fluid gushing out of her head is perturbing. 


It has been almost three months since my last surgery and I still feel like fluid is leaking out of the right side of my head.  But it's not.  I have been so traumatized by the events that occurred that I have what I call "phantom drippings".  It feels like I am leaking fluid, I panic, check the incision and find that it's dry. 


I really hope that I can recover from this trauma soon. Maybe I need to go back into therapy.  I just don't know.  But what I do know is sometimes having this condition is completely traumatizing for me and my family.