I went to the doctor to get a CT scan, and it turns out that the shunt I had in my head for 10 years stopped working, and fuild started to build in brain again. I was planned to have surgery on the 22nd of February, but I started to really lose my balance completely. I got rushed to the emergency room early which was already packed due to flu season, I was able to skip to the front of the line because I lost my balance again right in front of the front desk. 

Next thing I remember I was on a hospital bed in the hallway, finding a room for me was still a probably due to the overflow of patients , it took about a day or two for me to get my own room. 

When I did get a room it was one of the biggest one in the hospital, and I had some really nice nurses. My time in the hospital wasn't the hard part to be honest,  even though I did have brain surgery that wasn't the scariest thing.

Things got hard once I came home. In the hospital, my bed was propped up all the time, even when I was sleeping. I remember asking one of the nurses if  I could adjust the angle of the bed, and the nurse said it would be against the doctor's orders if they were to adjust it even a little. At the time I didn't really understand why, until I got home.

At home, I started to experience some pressure changes in my body, since the new shunt I had increased the pressure in my body. It felt like there was a bubble going through my body every time a pressure change happened. The change was so new to my body that it made me go into a panic attack with each pressure change my body experienced. 

I never really had a true panic attack,  so that too was a new experience for me that tripped me out so bad that I thought I was having an allergic reaction to the meds the doctor prescribed to quill the pain, and EMTs had to come take me to the hospital again, but this time it was for a panic attack.

I got prescribe some meds for anxiety but those dried out my mouth and the sensation of dry mouth threw me into another panic attack, so the meds were a no go for me. To deal with the panic attacks, I just had to remind myself that I was okay and that this new sensation of change in pressure was normal and nothing to be scared of, listening to music help, doing breathing techniques, and along with watching nostalgic shows like 'Unwrapped' or 'Extreme Home Makeover'.

I had a few night terrors too, but that again was due to my body pressure change from sitting up to laying down. I tried to copy the position was in the hospital but that was kind of hard to do with just pillows.

There some leftover anesthesia in my lip from the hospital, and that leftover anesthesia  made my throat and half of my face feel numb whenever I chewed, and that really triggered my fear of choking, cue another panic attack, oof. That made eating anything that was apple sauce a whole fight in itself!

I was able to get over this though when my sister lead me some Chapstick, and using the Chapstick help ease out the leftover anesthesia, or at least made my lips not so dry.

Another thing that was bother me at home was my stitches, for some reason my stitches started to itch a lot more at home than they did in the hospital. It felt like ants were marching on my head, and I was worried about the site getting infected so that was some added stress, again, cue panic attack.

I got some relief though when my sister would clean my stitches and change the bandage.  I was over the moon when I went to see my doctor for a follow up to get them removed once and for all.

Recently, I was able to get a full nights sleep without any panic attack or night terrors nothing!

HUZZAH!

And I was able to returned to my weekly art class, the teacher notice me not being there, and I told him what happened. The art teacher said that he understood since his son had a shunt too. It felt nice to be understood by someone on the outside.

It was touch and go at the start, LITERALLY! but right now I'm slowly returning back to my normal (if you can call me normal) self. In my time of recovery I'm realized that the bummed out feelings I've been feeling lately was prolly due to my brain fluid  increasing, not just me being being lame.

The lesson I chose to learn from this is that I shouldn't be so hard myself, since I do have hydrocephalus so there's a reason why it takes me long to complete things or get concepts, but that doesn't mean I'll never get them tho.

I hope this means I can hop back into doing reviews and game logs now that my mind is clear!

Until next time later days...