I got 99 problems but...Doctors might be 100.

Doctor... is there a Doctor in the house? Or at least one with a brain?

So my girl has been sick over the past week and it's unlike anything I've ever been witness too. What started as a simple UTI (with no UTI symptons) turned into a kidney infection. Ok, shit happens. It was an uncomfortable 2 days before she went to her Dr... we've all been there. So she gets to her Dr and goes thru all the tests for urine and blood. Her doc says the blood results will take a few days and the urine showed nothing, so she just prescribed some general antibiotics to fight whatever she had (1st good call... prescribe something for the placebo effect).

We cant even get to the pharmacy before we had to go to the emergency room. We drop off her 5 yr old at school at 9am and went directly to the hospital. After all the same tests based on her symptons (lower back pain, neck pain, lower left stomach pain, painful breathing) the ER nurse came right back and said her urine sample lit up light an xmas tree. UTI. Simple, right? No. The ER doc was concerned about the stiff neck and painful breathing and wanted to do a spinal tap to rule out meningitis (2nd good call... this was AFTER the results came back for a positive UTI and explained ALL the symptons). Not quite sure why you test for meningitis considering it's been 4 days since the onset of any symptoms, and in 2 days, she would have been dead. But Ok... you're the Dr. You understand.

So they do the Spinal Tap. Wasn't as painful as she thought it would be, but still, it wasn't ice cream either.

Now we have a new prescription for really really strong antibiotics. 7 days of 1-a-days and all the problems go away. Right... we wish.

So the ER was Thursday. Friday comes and goes with just general pain from the kidney infection. Saturday comes and the fun begins.

Migraines. Nausea. Vomiting.

Vomiting from the Nausea. Nausea from the Migraines. Migraines are a side effect of the antibiotics. Awesomeness on so many levels. I call the ER doc to go over these new symptoms and they ask if the vomiting is immediately after the taking of the antibiotics... we say "no, it's about 3 hours after". They then say, "ok, then she is getting the antibiotics so that isn't what is giving her the migraines, just give it 2 more days and everything should take care of itself." (3rd good call... if the antibiotics AREN'T causing the migraines, nausea, and vomiting, then what is?.. they should have thought of that the moment they say that it's not the antibiotics).

All the other tests came back negative.

Shall I continue? I shall.

So, we suffer. Symptoms of UTI and kidney infection are going away but the migraines are 10x worse than the pain of the infections ever were. Monday comes and goes and as she has rested this whole weekend, she feels that she can return to work. The migraines have subsided. So, she goes back to work on Tuesday. I do what every guy should to in this case... schedule a golf round.

Her 45 minute train ride in, and then 1 hour into work brings an abrupt end of her work day. The migraines are back and are worse, the nausea is back, as is the vomiting. Joyous. I get the phone call and offer to pick her up but she decides it would be quicker to take the train home and I would pick her up from the train and head right to the ER.

We do that. We go to the ER and once we are in our room, almost immediately they come in and give us an explination of why she has the migraines. "Spinal Headaches." 20% of spinal tap patients get them and they are caused by two scenarios, 1) lack of reproduction of the spinal fluid; 2) the hole in her spine hasn't closed and is leaking spinal fluid.

It explains it all. Laying on her back stops the migraines because she is using her own body to plug the hole. But once she gets up and moves around... she becomes Leaky Mcspinal-Fluid and voila, migraine.

So they have 2 ways to cure it, 1) heavy doses of caffeine which speed up metabolism and regenerate her bodily fluids faster to hopefully fill the gap, or 2) a "blood patch" where they draw blood from her arm and squeeze it into the hole in her spine so the blood coagulates and closes the gap. They try #1 and it offers a temporary relief (all while jumpstarting her heart to the point of scary heart palpatations). It doesn't work.

So, we go for #2, our last hope. 9:30am appointment this morning. The quote of the week is "Once she gets the blood patch, she'll notice that the migraines will go away with 2 hours and you'll be all set."

Boy, was that Dr right. The blood patch was more painful than the spinal tap, and it wasn't even the injection, it was the removal of the giant tube of blood from her arm... understand she is 5foot3in and 100 lbs (understating the lbs a tiny bit so I don't get hit with a shoe once she gets better). So, once the painful procedure was over, within an hour and a half the migraines were finally gone.

Excellent. It's finally over. We were told during the post-op that she should lift anything over 20lbs or do anything strenuous over the next 3 days, and after that she'll be back to normal. If she does do something strenuous, she might slip the clot out and they'd have to do the whole procedure again.

So we come home, and now, 14 hours after the procedure, she still can't get herself off the couch. Her lower back feels like a 500lb person is sitting on her and movement causes pain. We call the Surgery Center and talk to the Dr on staff and he says..(here it comes, the last good call) "Oh yeah, you'll be like that for about a week, but the stiffness won't go away for about 6 weeks."

WHAT THE FUCKK?????????? Where was that during the pre-op conversation, the during-op conversation, and the post-op recap. No one said she'd be incapacitated with lower back pain for a week and have discomfort for up to 6 weeks.

ALL this came from the fact that Dr Genius wanted to do a spinal tap for precautionary reasons, even though everything pointed away from that fact. Thanks doc.

Beep Beep. See ya'll at the tables.