{Head Case} Our Hydrocephalus Journey

March 4, 2016 Joe  and I sat patiently in ER room number 9. Both of us were laughing and making jokes about what "could" be wrong with him. Little did we know, in a few short hours it would be no laughing matter. But our Journey doesn't start here.



Our journey actually began on February 28th as that was the first time Joe reluctantly headed to the ER; following an entire day of being bedridden with what we thought was the flu. (We are still not 100% sure what he had.) That Sunday was the first time I have ever really been worried about him. Sure he spent Saturday sick in bed, so what, everyone gets sick. But not everyone forgets important dates and life events following a sickness. Worried that this was more serious than just the flu I finally talked him into going to the ER. I was sure they would figure it out. Boy was I wrong. In fact, within about 2 hours he returned home. "Altered Mental Status" the discharge papers read. Say what? Really. But it gets better. The believed culprit...energy shots. Don't get me wrong I strongly believe those things are horrible for ones health but THEY are what caused this episode? He proceeded to tell me that as he was leaving he nearly passed out at the nurses station. No tests were performed they just wheeled him to a room and once again told him no more energy drinks. Ok, NO more energy drinks for him! Got it! Loud and clear.

The next few days passed very uneventfully. Joe was still very tired and once again we joked about him needing a vacation as he works long days, 6-7 days a week. His memory issue did not return nor did the fever. We both thought he was "in the clear." That is until Friday afternoon. Once again, Joe passed out, this time he was behind the wheel! Thankfully, he had not yet put the car in drive. I rushed him to Urgent Care, worried. I thought this was from energy drinks BUT he hadn't had any. Once triaged we were quickly moved over to the ER. The nurse came in and took a very detailed personal history, performed an EKG to make sure he was not having issues with his heart and proceeded to get the Doctor. Everything looked good on the EKG and the Doctor explained that he thought Joe could be having anxiety attacks. Still he wanted to run a CT to rule out any additional causes for the recent spells.

Sitting there in that cold room, Joe said to me, "Why do I have to do a CT if the Doctor said it is just anxiety?" Shortly thereafter he was wheeled away for his test.

When the Doctor came back to see us we were both cuddled up, Joe on the edge of his bed me in the chair that I had scooted up as close as it could get. We must have looked like two love birds because the Doctor smiled and asked our relationship status. "Engaged!" we both said, me with a school girl giggle. The Doctor smiled and wasted no time getting down to business. "Your CT scan came back abnormal. You have water on the brain, or hydrocephalus. I have a call in to the neurologist." My eyes moved from the Doctors face to Joe's. Blissfully ignorant, Joe did not ask any questions, actually he was still smiling. I, on the other hand, was not. I had learned about hydrocephalus when in school studying to be a medical assistant but I knew NOTHING about it when it came to adults.

Once we were alone, Joe started asking me questions. I felt guilty as I could not answer them all. I told him what I knew and assured him I would be by his side 100%, no matter what. Another thirty or so minutes passed and once again the Doctor popped into the room. He informed us that Joe was going to be discharged, but that we needed to call the neurosurgeon Monday morning. Not going into great detail, probably as he knew we were both a little taken back still, he said that Joe would be needing surgery.