The Po Show

Needled

It's kind of sad when you get blase about having a needle stuck into your cervical spine, but I really wasn't a bit concerned about having another epidural yesterday. As before, I was most concerned about the logistics, asking Tessa's friend's mom if she could take her after school, making sure Ross could come home early to make sure someone was here for Matthew's bus. And I was really worried about my nose running during the procedure, since I've had a cold for a week and my nose has been pouring like a faucet and I couldn't take any meds the day of the procedure. The thought of being face-down on the OR table, lying perfectly motionless for half an hour, with my nose dripping was just really gross.

Well, true to form, everything I'd worried about was fine and the procedure itself really sucked. Not that it was more painful or anything, but it was very unpleasant. First of all, I couldn't get comfortable on the pillows under my chest; they felt too high and were kind of choking my throat. They tried to adjust them but it never did feel okay. Then the nurse put a nasal oxygen cannula into my nose, which they didn't do last time. As they prepped me, I started to feel like I couldn't breathe. I think this might go back to my experiences during my labor with Matthew, when they kept forcing me to wear an oxygen mask and I absolutely could not breathe during the contractions. I asked to take it out and they taped it next to my face instead, which was better but I still felt like I couldn't breathe. Then the doctor started the actual epidural, and I could feel a panic attack coming on. I started to get into a feedback loop of feeling the panic rise, but knowing that I *absolutely, positively COULD NOT move*, which fed the panic more.

"You're doing great," the nurse said, with that rising inflection that suggests that you are about to not be doing so great. "Don't move your head." So I fought the panic, shoved it down as hard as I could, listened to my heart rate bleep faster, forced myself to breathe. Luckily my spine doctor is a freaking rock star, and he finished up really quickly. "30 seconds," he assured me, then deftly whipped his hands around and said, "Okay, needle out!"

Boy, as soon as he said that, I started to shake like crazy. "You did great," the nurse told me, and I sort of chuckled uneasily. "No, really, you did!" Well, I didn't jump off the table or anything, so I guess I do get points for that, but it was so much harder compared to the last time, when I didn't move a muscle the entire time and it was a total cake walk.

I think part of the problem was that last time, the procedure was in the early afternoon, so the doctor told me that I could have breakfast but no lunch. This time, I was going in in the late morning, and I was told to fast from the night before. Me and fasting, we don't get along so well. So I think I was having blood sugar issues on top of the PTSD flashbacks from the oxygen tube. After they brought me to recovery and I had toast and juice (and two cups of coffee), I felt a lot better.

So now we wait and see again if this epidural does the trick. It took about 3 days last time for me to feel some relief. Plus this time I have the added bonus of not getting on a plane for 6 hours a week later, which pretty much negated the benefits of the last needling.