Two weeks after my surgery I had a follow up appointment with my neurologist. I was so excited to get my staples out and finally be able to wash my hair! He removed the wrap from my head and had just started to take a few staples out when I felt something dripping on my neck. He immediately said "Hold on. I'll be right back." I had a feeling that this was not good news. In the meantime my mom and I were trying to figure out what the liquid was that I felt on my neck. It was brown and didn't smell the greatest. A few minutes later my neurologist came back in and said he had just paged the neurosurgeon because it was clear I had an infection. I thought okay....infection. They're going to give me some antibotics and it will clear up. I can deal with that. My neurosurgeon walked in and looked at the back of my head. Yep....infected. He said: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we can treat your infection through IV antibiotics for a couple of weeks. The bad news is that we're going to have to admit you tomorrow for surgery to remove the bone flap due to the infection."
I just went through 6+ hours of brain surgery and now I was going back into surgery. Yikes. And there was more bad news....it was a two surgery process. First to remove the bone flap, insert a picc line and be on IV antibiotics for 4-6 weeks. I would have to let the area heal without anything protecting the open part of my skull (the size of half dollar). And second surgery would be at the beginning of December to put in titanium mesh and bone cement.
Three surgeries in 6 months and I didn't have a choice. It had to be done.
We left the doctors office and called my father and a few close friends to fill them in on the news. Back to the hospital in morning!
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