Falling As The Ground Gives Way Beneath My Feet

Warning: The photos that accompany this post are graphic and might be disturbing for some viewers

After my bone flap surgery, I was doing well, I had a few scabs along my incision line that hadn’t fully healed yet, but I had started physiotherapy. I was tired all the time, and was taking a lot of naps and I had to make sure not to overdo it. Everything was going well. For six weeks. Then everything changed.

After a session with my physiotherapist, I noticed some swelling alongside the bone flap, I was also really tired. I figured I must have overdone it, I took a few days to rest and I started to feel better. I had gone out with a friend for a walk along the waterfront over the May long weekend. It was a short trip out and I had a lot of fun, but I was tired when I got home and headed to bed early just as the fireworks were starting in the neighbourhood. At the time I had a small scab behind my ear, a part of the incision area that hadn’t completely healed yet. I guess at some point the crust of the scab had fallen off but I didn’t notice. When I lay down that night to go to sleep, I suddenly felt something wet dripping down my neck. I checked it out in the mirror and saw that a bloody ooze was coming out of the scab. At the time I didn’t think much of it and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning there was some blood stains on my pillow but the draining had stopped. Until I went to bed the next night and it started again. After a few days of this repeating pattern, the swelling in my face was gone and eventually the draining had stopped too. I spoke to one of my doctors who chalked it up to the swelling and the body using the opening from the scab to drain out the fluid. It was perfectly normal and everything was fine.

Then it started happening again. Only this time there was no swelling and the amount of drainage during the night had increased. My pillow would be soaked when I woke up in the morning. During the day it would seem fine but at night it would start draining again. The sore had also become bigger in size. I couldn’t find an answer to what was going on. I knew that what was happening was not normal and I needed to find out why. I called my neurosurgeon’s office and arranged to go in the next day to the ER at my hospital to be seen by someone from the neurological department.

They swabbed the site, and took some blood – both of which came back fine. They then had a CT scan conducted to see what was going on inside and that’s when they found the problem.

Falling Down a Dark Hole

The CT scan and the MRI they conducted after for confirmation showed an abcess of fluid underneath the bone flap. My bone had become infected and it needed to be removed.

I had none of the warning signs. Other than the oozing, which isn’t even a symptom of infection, there was nothing. No fever, no chills, no major headaches. There was some swelling back in May, but that was long gone by this point.

When the oozing first started, I spoke to a number of medical professionals who told me that it was fine. When it wouldn’t stop, I knew that there must be something. I held off of contacting my surgeon because I assumed he would be to busy and I didn’t want to bother him. I finally decided to just contact him and I am glad that I did. When something isn’t right, we need to keep asking questions until we get the right answers.

I never saw this coming. No one did. When the infection was discovered the doctors were surprised. Infection never shows up this quickly. It hadn’t even been three months since the bone had been reinserted. I didn’t have any of the usual signs or symptoms but something was wrong and my body found a way to tell me. I went into the emergency room expecting that they would stitch up the wound. Another surgery never even entered my mind.

I was devastated. I could not stop crying when they told me. The night staff wanted to operate right away but I held off until my neurosurgeon would be in. Dr. Spears is an amazing surgeon. He took the time to come and talk to me and he tried to keep my spirits up. He told me that they would go in and do a “wash and rinse” and if he could, he would try and salvage my bone. Unfortunately the infection had chewed away too much and it had to be destroyed.

I don’t remember the accident, but this I remember like it was yesterday. I was a wreck. Before the surgery and after I could not stop crying. I was throwing myself a great big pity party until two things snapped me out of it.

1. Dr. Spears told me to take a walk down the floor and see some of the other patients who were in far worse shape than me
2. one of my nurses asked me if I was going to let this win and beat me?

These moments put it into perspective for me. My bone was gone, but it’s only a bone. My brain, while injured from the accident, is still fairly intact. I have some definite deficits but they are manageable and I’m currently working on getting my Masters degree in Counselling Psychology. I was lucky. We caught the infection before it was able to spread. So I could either let this beat me and spend all of my time feeling sorry for myself or I could dig down deep inside and find my inner strength and use it to pull myself out of this hole.

To read this story from the beginning click here, here, here and here. The story will continue over the next few weeks, I hope that you stick around.

Thanks for reading,

Charlene xoxo