Hi all! It's been a while since I posted & I thought things were going good after I got my SCS ex-planted but I guess that was too much to hope for. It seems as though now I have a new infection in my dural implant from the craineotomy. Oh goody.
Of course, the doctors don't all yet agree & we all know that "doctor knows best". *note dripping sarcasm* I spent 8 years working to convince these silly doctors the last time that I had an infection. When they finally
opened me up, the world-class surgeon I had said it was possibly the worst infection he'd ever seen & didn't know how I even was able to sit up, much less walk in the front door of the hospital the morning of my surgery. Ummmm... I seem to remember someone saying that it was a really horrible infection -- who was that? Oh yeah, that was ME.
So needless to say, my frustration level is rapidly approaching a 10 as the pain specialist said to talk to the neurosurgeon; the neurosurgeon who did the implant wants to pawn me off on the plastic surgeon; the plastic surgeon says he doesn't do dural implants (thank God! I would not in a million years allow a plastic surgeon to play with the covering of my brain!); my PCP first suggested wound care -- they're somewhat decent, but the wound care clinic is run by NP's and surgeons don't respect "nurses" enough to listen to them so unless I see an infectious disease doctor, I'll never get surgery and the ID docs would see me without bloodwork from my PCP showing an active infection. The problem is, last time my bloodwork all came back normal. It wasn't until they did a biopsy that they found the infection had spread pretty much everywhere except my blood.
Ugh! Apologies for the long vent. I just want the infected implant out of my body. Is that really so much to ask for? Meanwhile, infections are crazy painful so I'm having a heck of a time trying to get any rest in spite of multiple epidurals and a bump on pain meds. Guess I'm mainly posting for sympathy, but if anyone's been through this & has advice I could really use it.