Those who read the replies to my previous post will know that my wife Heather had an ice skating accident on Saturday.
She slipped backwards and pretty much landed only on her head. She was totally unconscious for about a minute, and subsequently drifted in and out of consciousness until the ambulance came. At the hospital they didn't mess around, thankfully. She was almost immediately sent for a CAT scan to check for bleeding on the brain - thankfully they found nothing. What they did find though was that she had fractured her skull (a few breaks) which indicates just how hard she hit the ice (the skull is one of the hardest bones in the body).
The hospital actually decided to release Heather at 11:30pm that night. As we got up to leave she lost her balance and vomited some more and they decided to keep her in then. Since then she's had 3 more CAT scans because the doctors keep thinking they might be missing something since the vomiting has yet to stop. Tomorrow she goes for MRI which gives a bit more detail on soft tissue injuries. The doctor is presuming that will all come back normal, but he's confused why Heather is more sick lying down than she is sat up - apparently that's unusual, but could just be because lying down puts pressure on her fracture.
She's completely lost her sense of smell, but honestly that seems a small price to pay given the statistics I found later (1 in 12 TBIs results in death). If I had to choose any particular sense to lose, smell would probably be it. As we joked about it - at least now she'll be able to sit near Shelby without gagging (old dogs fart a lot).
I'm hoping she'll be home early next week - they want to make sure she's at least stable on her feet before coming home, plus I am really worried because I don't have the option of trying different medications once she's home. It sounds callous (though I only feel that way being brought up in the UK where you're made to feel guilty every time you use the free health care) but I'd rather she stayed in the hospital until she's stable.
Work-wise things are crappy - I was supposed to be at MAAWG this week, plus spam volumes are going up massively lately, causing us grief in various ways that I'm trying my best to help with while balancing my needs to go visit Heather. All this has me pretty exhausted, but I'm struggling through.
I truly hope she comes out of this will little to "show" or it.
Re:Sense of Smell
jdavidb on 2006-10-27T18:23:05
Best wishes, Matt, for Heather's recovery.
My wife has almost no sense of smell, and actually there are advantages.
:)
I hope she gets well soon! Hopefully she does indeed not have any more serious problems.
(If you need something uplifting, read Scott Adams’ story of his voice. Just amazing. Here’s hoping for your own little wonder.)
You never know when this kind of thing can sneak up on you, very scary. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, even of the smell.
