The 2nd dreaded angiogram...

IS DONE!!!!!! I must say, this whole brain thing has been very odd to deal with. It happened. You read about it. Life is a little different now. I returned to work July 9th, thrilled to be back. I told the story a million times. Told everyone I'm fine except for a little pain and the upcoming angiogram. See - I think I've become a little gun shy. There is a new based fear that now lives inside me. It's not huge, it's not overwhelming, and it’s not ruining my life but its there. I'm told this is normal. Awesome. When I was told I had to have another angiogram I cried. Then I started to get anxious the closer it got. Ask anyone who has seen me or chatted with me since I returned to work and before the angiogram. I mostly answered with "A bit sore but dreading the upcoming angiogram". I don’t think I've ever been this nervous for something. I do think having a random vessel explode in my brain and almost killing me has something to do with this. So I kept trying to just accept it. "Jami - they do angiograms all the time" I tell myself. "Jami just fucking relax, you already survived one". Two days before I receive a phone call from a lovely friendly nurse named Cindy who tries her best to put me at ease and make me laugh while telling me what to do. I ask if I will see her the day of and she says she hopes so. I hope so too. The risks involved with an angiogram are: Possible stroke. Possible fatal allergic reaction to the dye. Possible blood clots. Possible bursting of where they enter you through the femoral artery. The only one I felt confident about was the dye. Since I already had one and I'm not dead, I must not be fatally allergic. Here's the other thing that was freaking me out - I've had one. I know what they do and it's weird and invasive and painful. SO - the day came and went. This was yesterday. I hadn’t slept well all week having anxiety dreams every night. I stopped eating/drinking Thursday night and went to bed early hoping to get some sort of sleep. After dreaming I was turned into a robotic hospital alien thing I woke up at 5:45am. Showered. Shaved (Must remember - a nicely clean shaven landscaping job is a must) and sat on the couch biting my fingernails until my dad arrived at 6:30am. I opened the door and he smiled a sympathetic smile asking how I was. I cried and hugged him and told him I was scared. I felt like a little girl again hoping my daddy could protect me from the scary mean angiogram monster. Mom got up and wished me luck and off we went. I had chosen a loose skirt to wear and granny panties knowing the kind of pain I would be in if I survive this thing. We check in at the South Lobby next door to ER. I glared at the ER door blaming it for me landing there a bit over a month ago. We wait a while. Chatting. Trying to talk about anything but. A hunchback looking nurse waddles out and calls my name. We are brought into a large room filled with beds. I'm having colonoscopy memories. Another nurse named Alma with a nice smile introduces herself and tells me to get undressed and into the all too familiar looking gown. She starts asking me questions and taking tests and chatting with my dad. She is perfect for my father. They share drug stories and school stories and medical stories and I only understand about 1/3 of what they are talking about. She then has a hell of a time trying to get me hooked up to an IV, so I end up looking a bit like a pin cushion but it happens. We then wait. Dad points out that the man next door sounds like Eugene Levy from A Mighty Wind. Every time he talks now I giggle. We continue chatting about everything but again and I start to get nervous. My stomach is fluttering as I'm watching 10am approach. 10am is when I'm scheduled. All of a sudden a tall woman with a surgical cap appears at the foot of my bed with Alma. "Jami? You ready?!" she stops and looks at me and cocks her head. "You look familiar" she says. "So do you!" I say. "Are you Cindy?" she is and she is also the woman who was part of the angiogram team during my 1st one. "Are you the one that told me exercise kills?" I ask. She bursts out laughing. "Now I remember you!" she says. "And don’t you worry, I still have a perfect record and don’t like paperwork!". I'm unhooked, allowed to pee and off we go. When we arrive just outside the place I'm to have it done my dad peers into the rooms with childlike curiosity. "Look at the size of that thing!" he says about some giant piece of machinery. Cindy is checking my pulse in my feet and Mike shows up. I smile. "I remember you too!" I say. "And I remember you, how are you?" he says. Then another gentleman whose name I never caught also recognizes me from angiogram #1. I already feel a smidge less nervous knowing it's almost the same team as before. Dr. Dorne shows up asking if I have any final questions. He says he'll see me in about 20 minutes. Dad is ushered out after kissing me on the forehead and I'm taken into the room and I remember everything. I'm way more alert this time around and I stare at everything. The weird lights, the many screens, that big weird square thing that moves around my head. They start the prep, Cindy spreading some bright orange stuff on my things, the plastic hoo hah strip, me signing my life away, the tarp that lays across my body, lights turned on and shining directly on that area. "What kind of music do you like?" Cindy asks. "I say most everything except country and pop". "I love her!" a man in the corner shouts! "She doesn’t like country!" "It's still three to one" Mike tosses back after positioning my head. That’s when I realize there is music playing in the room. They laugh and joke around me and I feel like I'm in the middle of a classroom with jokester students. This is a much different attitude than the somber quiet attitude from the first time around. Dr. Dorne appears and we begin. Cindy gave me something through the IV and asks if I feel anything. I tell her no and start to worry. Dorne warns me of the bee sting. It hurts much more this time than before. I flinch. I hear Cindy say whatever she gave me hasn’t touched me so he says to give me something I don’t understand and then I feel the fuzzy feeling. All of a sudden I hear LMAFO singing wiggle wiggle and someone is singing along. Then the verse goes to "Sexy and I know it" and Dorne says "Oh that's what this song is". This is the oddest moment...I'm laying there about to have a catheter thing shoot up my main vein and LMAFO is playing in the background?? I almost start laughing. The procedure begins. The music is lowered, but still playing mind you. I found that interesting and somewhat comforting. Lights are constantly turned on and off, I hear the sounds of photos, Mike is telling me again to take a slight breath and hold and I'm now having deja vu. This goes on and I smile a tad when I hear Lady Gaga come over the radio. So random. Dorne is asking how I am doing every now and again. I always answer a timid ok. I feel the warmth shooting through my face and my mouth. He warns me each time. I feel it through my uterus it seems and my leg. So odd. This goes on maybe half hour/45 minutes? When he says almost done, they are gathering near the entry wound. "This will hurt a bit" he says and HOLY SHIT DID IT! Apparently they closed my artery differently this time because I was sent home later with a little brochure describing the thing they closed me up with that I now have to carry with me and let people know it's there (MRI folks, airlines, etc). The one I had in ICU was a dissolvable one. This one is not. It sounded like they were hammering it. They warned me but damn it hurt and was weird and I didn’t cry but dammit I wanted to. I was done. They wheeled me out to where dad was there - red and a bit sweaty. "I went to the mall and back!" he stated proudly. And I was taken to the recovery ward. This was an area where there were a bunch of private rooms that we outpatient folks chilled in for a few hours after whatever we had done. I had to keep my right leg perfectly flat and not move it for 3 hours not 5. Guess these closure thingies are really different. Mike and Cindy said their goodbyes saying they hoped the next time they saw me I would be upright and smiling. I then lay there, a bit of a headache, a bit sore but ok. And hungry. The nurse orders me some lunch and dad heads out for a bit to get himself something to eat. I try to sleep but can’t and futz with dad's kindle. Dad returns and we chat and chat and chat. It was very comforting knowing he was there. Dr. Dorne comes in and says he had some time and looked over my slides. All is good. My dad sighs a huge sigh of relief and almost jumped for joy. I think dad was more nervous about the results and I was more nervous about the procedure itself. Dr. Dorne said I didn’t need to follow up an appt with him just my neurologist. We were thrilled. We chat and chat some more and a little before 2pm the nurse asks if I'd like to try to walk around. I do, almost puke but don’t and realize how sore I'm going to be. I dress, IV's are removed, papers are signed and out we go. When I get home I hurt. I hurt alot. Mom makes the comment that I was on alot of drugs last time I had this done and this time I have none. I pop a few Tylenol and crawl into bed. I have a pretty nasty headache as well but dad had said the dye can do that so I didnt worry. I hurt pretty bad the rest of the night but today I feel better. I can move around a bit better without it hurting too horribly. It's now more of an ouchy nag. I took a shower and removed the dressing. I have a pretty gnarly looking hole that is getting a lovely yellowish purple color around it but isn’t as sore as yesterday. I'm taking it very easy and I will for another week or so. But I'm done!!!!!! It's over. I meet with my neurologist next Monday the 6th but it looks like all is good. I'm hoping after I get the green light from him on that Monday I can start to slowly ease back into an active life. It will be very slow going for me for a while and I'm not sure how much I'll get back into since there will always be that new nagging fear but I'm ready. Just to think, almost 2 months ago I had something happen to me that almost killed me and here I am, almost back to normal. I'm surrounded by some pretty great fucking people. Glad to be alive!