Serious situation

So Thursday was my first follow up with my neurologist since my surgery. This is the original doctor who diagnosed me and she has been my staunchest supporter through all of this. One of the first things she said was, "Wow you look very pale and have very bad circles under your eyes." At that point I didn't realize how sick I was and I was just excited to show her I had done so well since my surgery. After leaving her office I proceeded to vomit during the ride home. Once I was home the vomiting continued. By about 5 am that had settled but the headache and neck pain was still very severe. Friday morning out of the blues I decided to check my temperature and to my dismay it was 99.9. This is only a moderate temperature but in light of just recently having brain surgery is a very important thing to pay attention to.

So I called my surgeons office and the nurse was concerned as well. She called the doctor as soon as he was finished with surgery and following that she called me back and explained that they want to monitor it over the weekend to see what happens. Really the main thing they can look at is my temperature and they are hoping it does not hit 100.3. Normally they look at temperature, a headache, stiff neck and sometimes a rash.

Well headaches are difficult in this case because post surgery that can be normal or a sign of other things. Stiff neck is also difficult because I just had major surgery which is going to require a couple months of physical therapy for my neck. However, I have been working on this and have had decent mobility and now with this it has gone to virtually no movement.

The main thing is if I have a fever of 100.3 or if vomiting continues then I am to call them and speak with the on-call doctor or go to an ER. Some are asking why wait? Well, currently the experts in this are concerned but also think that there is not much they can do to diagnose it at this time. One of the main diagnoses tools is a spinal tap and we all know how well that went last time. Beyond that I am not sure whether it is even possible to do a spinal tap this soon after brain surgery.

Friday night my temperature broke and there was a little improvement in my symptoms. However early Saturday morning those symptoms worsened as did my temperature. I am concerned that things are obscure and I am definitely not feeling well. My plan is to call the doctor Monday as long as things stay as they are and be firm with them that I would like a further evaluation. Being that the difference between whether it is a viral or bacterial infection becomes a critical situation and the symptoms are not really clear I don't want to wait too long.

Please pray that the symptoms become very clear and the doctors can differentiate them to make a clear diagnosis. Either one is serious but one is much more serious than the other. Pray for wisdom as to what tests to do and when.

Thanks to everyone who has been so concerned about this as well so supportive! It has been an overwhelming blessing.