OK so I know I have a bunch of back posting to do. \u00a0I have been keeping notes but just haven’t gotten around to updating the blog yet. \u00a0I just had to post a few things on my mind before I forget them.<\/p>\n
We started getting a bit worried yesterday because there were some bumps and redness appearing on my neck. \u00a0The swelling also had been fluctuating (better in the morning, worse in the evening) in past days but seems to have leveled off and been pretty constant recently. \u00a0That and the fact that I randomly feel hot, sweaty, clammy, and nauseous had us worried enough to make an appointment to talk to our regular doctor today. \u00a0Luckily each time I felt bad we took my temperature and confirmed that I did not <\/strong>have a fever.<\/p>\n Adrianne tried to call the neruosurgeons office with no luck. \u00a0It was then I recalled that in my well thought out plan of getting the surgery done sooner rather than later, the bad side effect was that the neurosurgeon was now out of state at some major neurosurgery conference for this week and would not be available to answer questions. \u00a0So we scheduled an appointment last night to see our primary care doctor today.<\/p>\n As an aside, one of the things I really like about this doctor is the abillity to manage your appointments fully through their secure portal. \u00a0I was able to log on at 11:30pm and select which doctor in the practice I wanted to see, and then select my preferred appointment time out of the date \/ time combinations returned. \u00a0You can even do advanced registration online and submit the copayment. \u00a0So when I got to the doctor’s office rather than waiting through the 5 minute customary barrage of questions and request for co-pay, she simply said I see you have comlpeted advanced registration and paid. \u00a0Then she handed me my appointment sheet with labels and told me to sit down that a nurse would call me back shortly. \u00a0Much much more convenient!<\/p>\n So we get called back and remember right away that she has access to all of the hospital records since she is in the same network. \u00a0I was reminded of this fact when she went over the medications I was taking and asked if I was still taking medicines that had been prescribed to me at the hospital. \u00a0So to help you realize exactly how hilarious this next part is, I have to give you some brief background. While in the hospital I became suddenly and violently fixated with lime sherbet. Orange was offered in its place but no other would do, it had to be lime. The nurses in the ICU were amazingly accommodating searching all over the hospital for hidden stashes and bringing me lime sherbet at any time of day or night when requested. \u00a0Once I went to a regular room they were not so accommodating and usually told me they were out (ironically enough the ICU nurses said that they had a stash and it was this stash the ICU nurses were raiding). \u00a0They offered me Orange sherbet a few times but I just turned up my nose because nothing but lime would do! The soon understood and stopped offering simply stating that they did not see any lime sherbet. So apparently the hospital staff was very amused by this and made some remark in my paperwork because as my primary doctor was reviewing the hospital report she looked up smiling at me and said “so you like lime sherbet huh?”<\/p>\n Okay so maybe it was only amusing to me but I found it delightful that my legacy at Duke hospital was sending nurses on numerous goose chases looking for the elusive lime sherbet.<\/p>\n So back to what many are probably curious about … primary doctor took a look and said that everything looked really good to her. \u00a0She asked if I had ever had an allergic reaction to stitches (which I have not). Her basic assessment was redness is pretty normal and as long as there is no puss or bloody draining accompanied with a high fever than I am fine. \u00a0She said that most likely the bumps and\/or redness were from a reaction to the tape that was used to hold the dressing in place or skin irritation that can commonly happen when stitches have been in for a while. \u00a0She was also very impressed at how quickly I was recovering. \u00a0She made remarks several times about how well I seemed to be doing, and how much mobility I already had with my neck. \u00a0She also reassured us that when she looked at the stitches they were very well done. \u00a0She commented several times that the stitches were very nicely done and that the area was fully sealed and looked very nice. \u00a0She answered several of our questions since we got different stories from nurses and doctors at Duke. \u00a0For example, a nurse told me she had orders to change my dressing every day and that I was supposed to keep the dressing on each day with antibiotic cream. \u00a0The doctor so absolutely not that it needed to breathe and exposure to the air would be good. \u00a0He further said that putting the antibiotic cream on could do more damage than good because it could trap dirt particles that otherwise would not be there and may actually cause infection. \u00a0So the consensus when we left was to only put the cream and dressing on if it started to look like it was getting infected. \u00a0But of course having seen doctors and nurses pretty evenly split on their advice we were still confused. \u00a0Our primary doctor confirmed that it would be a good idea to leave the dressing off and not put on the cream. \u00a0She said if the wound wasn’t completely sealed or there was any drainage I should probably use the dressing and cream but as it is since it looked to be healing very well and sealed to just keep doing what I was doing.<\/p>\n So all in all a very good day today. \u00a0Each day continues to have it’s highs and lows but today just seemed a generally good day. Not only did we get answers that we were looking for with the reasoning and explanations behind the answers, we were also reassured that we had nothing to worry about and I was healing even faster and better than anticipated. \u00a0And the best part is I didn’t have any real emotional lows today. \u00a0I felt pretty positive and encouraged all day. \u00a0I have also noticed that my emotional lows seem to correspond with late evening when the sun is on its way down or it is already dark. \u00a0And today even though the sun is on its way out I still feel pretty darn good!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK so I know I have a bunch of back posting to do. \u00a0I have been keeping notes but just haven’t gotten around to updating the blog yet. \u00a0I just had to post a few things on my mind before I forget them. We started getting a bit worried yesterday because there were some bumps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,10,14],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-chiari-malformation","tag-recovery","tag-syringomyelia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willandadri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}