Updates: On Wednesday I went in to hospital (again of course) for some more check ups. I had a venogram (number 3) and a lumbar puncture (number 15... I think) They spent about an hour inside my head with a catheter and metal rod, trying to get into the veins on the left side of my head, unfortunately these never formed correctly and it was just impossible. On several occasions the catheter disappeared into my heart when trying to push through the veins in my brain. The second image shows what the veins are doing, the nice wide grey patches are where I had a stent put in in April last year, it then narrows, I will be having another stent placed in the next few weeks. The right side of the image looks pretty pathetic, and that pretty much sums up those veins, pathetic. My previous lumbar puncture was 2 months ago, I had an opening pressure if 35 cmH2O, and had about 35-40ml drained to bring the closing pressure to 15cmH2O. On Wednesday my op was 32cmH2O... Though I didn't feel like my pressure was that high... I told my radiologist that I had a bet going that it was 27. He shut me down quickly by saying "well, you've shot straight past that and are already in the low 30s". Oh well, shit happens. At least I wasn't feeling too horrible in the lead up like I was in May. I think we drained to about 11-12cmH2O. The results of the day were that I need to have another stent placed almost as an extension of the current stent. This is s little bit scary but I'm not too phased, scary because when they tried to put the current stent in, the sheath disinterested inside my vein and they had to pull it out quite roughly and start again. This time they're going to have to go through the current stent to get the new one in place. As they can't go through the left thanks to those ridiculous veins that never developed. Oh, the third picture is of my file at the hospital, I had to laugh because I didn't realise I'd added another folder to it. I also have a very large one at another hospital where I see my opthalmologist. So. After getting a hole in my groin for the venogram, a hole in my arm for fluids I never got and a hole in my spine for the LP, I was pretty wobbly and in pain for the remainder of Wednesday and leading into Thursday. I used a cane for the first time in my life so that I wouldn't miss out on watching my team play footy (AFL) last night. I was glad I don't get states, but I did feel self conscious using it. But it was immensely helpful to keep me upright!!! So. Now I go see my Gp in 2 hours to let her know how I'm tracking and what's happening. And then we wait. Like always.
