I've only been on this site for a few days. I had my decompression surgery on August 7, I am just over 3 weeks post op. Surgery went very well. They did the craniectomy, laminectomy, and duraplasty. They do think that I had a small leak that I was put on bedrest for last weekend, but it seems to have healed itself. I saw the surgeon on Tuesday and he was thrilled with how well I was doing (and so was I). He increased my weight lifting restriction to 10-15 lbs, dropped the driving restriction and I am allowed to do activity as tolerated. I am a pediatric nurse and the plan is for me to go back to work on September 24 (I have been off for 7 months after I had shoulder surgery in February which started all of this).
Yesterday I felt amazing! I have two dogs. I decided to take the older one to the dog park in the morning, felt great. I came home and took a 3 hour nap. Then in the afternoon I took my 1.5 year old pup to the park. Still felt good, but tired. Then last night and today I have had a huge increase in my neck pain/stiffness and headaches. I didn't feel like I was overdoing it at the time. How long does it take for these awesome days and horrible days to even out? It doesn't seem that I have many days that are in the middle. I was able to get myself off of narcotics last week and now am taking tylenol, advil and muscle relaxers (which I am working on weaning). I am not very patient and want to be better NOW!
My other issue is about shaking. I developed shaking on the right side of my body when I got to my hospital room. It was pretty significant. My one nurse told me that he was gonna give me a margarita shaker to make him a drink, my nurses at the hospital were amazing and funny! My leg and hand would shake uncontrollably, then stop and start. They weren't totally sure what was going on, but said that they think that it was due to swelling around my cerebellum. They put me on Decadron which after a few days did make the shaking go away. After a week or so, the shaking came back but only in my right hand and not nearly as noticeable. However, I have had a couple of nights at home that it has been just like it was in the hospital. It is typically at night and tends to be when I am hurting and have probably overdone it during the day. It also happens if I wake up quickly. I thought that I would throw it out there to see if this has happened to anyone else and if you have anything that helped. I mentioned it to the neurosurgeon and he said he thinks it is still because my body is getting used to the new flow of my CSF. I had a severe blockage preop but no syrinx.
Thanks,
Jenn