Spinal Tap

This past week, I had a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) seminar. The credits earned from which are necessary to remain in good standing with my CPA license. This particular CPE was held at a hotel in a Boston suburb which I, and apparently a lot of other attendees, had never before been to. The hotel from the outside was massive and there was an event board front-and-center in the lobby which was conveniently silent to the room I needed to find. It seemed a lot of others were also noticing this, as there were about ten middle-aged men standing around said board in silence, just staring at it. 

"Excuse me?" I said rather audibly to a passing hotel worker. "Which way is the accounting seminar?"

"All the way down the hall on your left," he replied.

In a flash, all ten men rushed to cut in front of me towards the hall on their left, speed walking to the room I had just been given directions to as if asking for help was their idea.

How badly I wanted to yell after them! "YOU'RE WELCOME!" But I didn't -- I decided to save my sass for another day.

On the long walk down the hall, I got to thinking about why so many of us have such difficulties asking for help or advice. I thought a little further about my own recent experiences and noted this seemed to be even more difficult to do when it came to medicine or our health. For instance, I was so nervous to have my spinal tap done yet could only muster the confidence to ask my friends for advice -- not the doctor or nurse. Worse, I was hesitant still to ask follow up questions to the minimal advice that I actually got. Therefore, in hopes of helping someone out there who is also too timid to ask, I am going to walk you through my experience* with a spinal tap.

Upon arriving to my spinal tap appointment, which for me was an outpatient procedure, the nurse at my neurologist put me in a large room with two chairs and a hospital bed. I brought along my husband because I am, in fact, a big weenie and the extra chairs seemed to be there for this very reason. The nurse asked me to undress and put on a hospital gown with the opening to the back and told me I could leave my underwear on if it made me more comfortable, which it did. I was also thankful to have shaved my legs at this point (don't laugh, it's winter!) as my jeans were a no-go. My nurse asked if I wanted a blanket, which I originally declined, but thankfully she knew better and brought it anyway. Never turn down a blanket in a hospital setting! Even if you get sweaty when you worry, like me, you will eventually be freezing. 

Next, my neurologist came in to give me some papers to sign, to talk with me a little about what I could expect after the procedure, and to let me know that he would be performing the spinal tap himself. He had me sit on the bed facing away from him and pushed on my hip bones and spine with his hands in order to locate the exact point the needle would be inserted. He then marked a few spots on my back with a marker. As pathetic as this is, the pressure on my hips and back was already making me queasy -- for some reason, I don't typically feel queasy from pain but only from being examined in a medical setting...I know, I'm a weirdo. Anyway, at this point I asked to lay down on my side and told him I was feeling lightheaded. It is important to note that usual me would NEVER have spoken up about this -- I would've just dealt with it. However, the fear of passing out with a giant needle in my back was greater than the fear of sounding like a wuss -- so I said something. Luckily, the doctor said I could lie down on my left side and that he could do the procedure with me laying down as well as sitting.

If you get queasy easily, it's probably best for you to stop reading now :-)

I told the doctor that I am an over communicator, and I like to know what's going on at all times (see previous post about perfectionism, type-a-ness, etc.). This was important for me because I obviously couldn't see what was going on back there. He let me know that he was going to numb the area with smaller needles and that it might sting a bit. It did sting, but only mildly.

Now with the area was numb, the doctor let me know that he would be inserting the larger, hollow needle and that it sometimes took a minute to get it to where it's supposed to be. He also noted that it would be important for me to let him know if I feel any "zings" down either of my legs, as that means he bumped in to a nerve and knowing which leg the zing occurred in would help him reroute to the correct location.

I honestly didn't feel the needle itself going in at all -- thank God. I did feel a good amount of pressure, which was unsettling, and some of those "zings" the doctor talked about, which were super weird and uncomfortable. I spoke up about the zings and he was able to get the needle in place within a minute or two at which point I felt a small "pop". These few minutes were probably the hardest part of the entire procedure. Although I didn't feel pain, per se, I did feel extremely uncomfortable and was death-gripping husband's hand. Important note -- I once again would not have spoken up at all about these zings if the doctor hadn't asked me to. I would have figured they were part of the procedure and just something I had to suck up and deal with. 

At this point, naive me thought I was home-free. "How long does the needle need to stay in," I asked. "About ten to fifteen minutes time is needed to collect the fluid," the doctor said. WHAT? I thought. I can't make fifteen minutes with this thing in my back! I asked husband and the doctor to talk to me. "Tell me a story," I said. And they did -- we talked about pizza and ice cream and migraines and med school and why the heck Massachusetts is so expensive and before I knew it, the fifteen minutes were up. I was warned before the needle was removed from my back but didn't feel a thing. 

I was then asked to lie on my back for thirty minutes on the hospital bed. It was at this point that the blanket I was adamant about not wanting came in oh-so-handy. I asked the doctor what the purpose of laying on your back was and he told me it was a great question. Apparently, the field of medicine is superstitious, you see. Years ago, neurologists thought that laying on your back after a spinal tap would decrease the subsequent and dreaded low-pressure spinal headache. However, this thought has never been proven and the practice is followed more out of superstition than factual medical evidence. After thirty minutes were up, I got dressed, made my follow-up appointment, and was treated to ice cream by hubby. I'm glad hubby was there because this procedure is not really something you want to drive yourself home from.

For the first 24 hours after my procedure, I felt great, cured, like I could take on the world! Around hour 24, I started to develop a headache that worsened when I stood and got better when I lay down. This type of headache is known as a low-pressure spinal headache and is caused by the removal of some of the spinal fluid. For the next 26 to 48 hours, the headache became so bad that had to call out of work and could not be in anything but a horizontal position. For a six hour span within this time frame, I couldn't eat or drink anything, even water, without it coming back up. After hour 48, I felt leaps and bounds better and could walk around the house or even take a short drive to get groceries. I took it easy through the weekend as my lower back was pretty sore and by the one-week mark, I was feeling as normal as I could remember feeling -- I had no residual side-effects from the spinal tap and my eye and head problems were subsiding, with the help of my new medicine. 

I'm hoping that you never have to experience a spinal tap but if you do, I'm confident that the above will help you navigate it. Don't ever be afraid to speak up about what you're feeling or to ask questions, whether in a medical setting, at an accounting seminar, or during whatever else life throws your way.

*I am definitely NOT a medical professional of any type and this blog entry is meant to be purely anecdotal.

God's Plan

God* teaches us humility, and humanity, in funny ways.

For those who don't know me very well, or don't know me at all: I have been type-A since I came out of the womb. I am the planner, the fixer, the do-it-all'er, the purist who must have all the checks in their boxes with no colors outside the lines. In Kindergarten, I once told a classmate that the picture of the girl he was coloring can't possibly have purple hair because purple hair doesn't exist. I mean, now it does, but maybe it didn't in 1994, I don't know -- I digress. You get the point.

Thus, in late June 2018, when Husband and I landed ever-so-happily in perfect-for-us Boston, we decided it was time to have a baby.

We had so many friends who had children -- many of whom got pregnant within the first three months or, even luckier, the first month of trying -- that we didn't give much thought to the process. At first, Husband was even planning the kid's birthday to ensure it was after tax season. In hindsight, the though of this is so comical it hurts.

Month one went by uneventfully. We weren't paying much attention to the "schedule" because we weren't "those people" who got all stressed about trying to conceive.

Month two was difficult because I was dealing with some health issues: debilitating migraines of the hemiplegic sort. This made me irritable, tired, and -- most notably -- scared. If you aren't familiar with hemiplegic migraines, think of the signs of a stroke. Facial numbness, numbness on one side of the body, cognitive dysfunction, and impaired motor skills all accompany these types of migraines. Picture walking back to your office with a coffee, feeling your right hand go numb, and then not being able to physically open your office door because your body won't cooperate with your mind -- fucking terrifying. After having one to two of these a week, I was immediately referred to a neurologist who ran some tests and prescribed medication to mitigate these specific types of migraine aura I was experiencing. Thankfully, the medicine worked and by late August I was migraine-free.

Month three was game time. Suddenly, I had turned into "that woman" that I judged so harshly in the past. Every day I would take my temperature, pee on an ovulation stick, adhere to the "schedule". Hardly what you would call "taking it easy" or "conceiving without stress". Looking back, I wonder why I didn't give myself more of a break; but then I re-read paragraph one of this post -- planner, type-A, goal-oriented -- and it all makes sense. 

Month three was the month we got pregnant. I will never forget the feeling the first time two little lines popped up on that stick. Happiness! Then fear; what if we can't do this? But happiness! A baby? Oh wow it actually worked, huh. More happiness! So what if I suck as a parent? All the feelings buzzing around and around in my head. I think Husband and I spent the first 48 hours in pure shock.

Immediately the planning crept back in. I need to make a registry. I need to decide what the nursery will look like. I must order a baby book. And when is the appropriate time to tell our friends and family? The obsession went on and on and then one day, after a few weeks, something just felt wrong.

At this point, I had previously taken a slew of pregnancy tests. From the cheap-o ones that you have to be a cryptologist to decipher to the bougie ones that just said "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant". I had kept all of the positive tests and also had photo evidence because, well, I'm me. I decided, one morning around the six-week mark, to take another test. I think I knew in my heart it would be negative before the words "Not Pregnant" confirmed it. I sat there in the bathroom in shock, letting it sink in that I just had an early miscarriage (or chemical pregnancy). I called my husband and told him the news. And for a few weeks after that I cried randomly, wondering if there was something wrong with me and asking why God had determined that my body wasn't fit to carry a baby.

"Miscarriage" is not a word you'll hear often in conversation, even among close friends. It seems our society has made it a dirty word...something to be ashamed of. In my own experience, I've had people, even family, tell me that I should keep such things to myself. For a while, I thought they might be right, but no longer. Sharing experiences sets you free and maybe my experience will encourage one other person to share theirs, leaving them that much less alone.

Months four and five were also no good. Emotionally, we just weren't in the game. Physically, our bodies seemed to know this. We ended up taking these months off, whether purposefully or not.

And then there was month six. Month six is this month. At six months, if you are over the age of 32 (which I am not), you qualify, at least per my doctor, for fertility assistance. At six months, if you are me, 29-year-old Lauryn, your brain decides to fight you once more. 

At my quarterly neurologist appointment two weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Intercranial Hypertension causing Papilledema. Not a doctor? This means that my brain is mysteriously swollen and it has put so much pressure on my optic nerve that I am at risk for blindness. For about two months prior, I had been having trouble focusing on things and was feeling like my head and neck were inflamed, which I relayed to the neurologist. I was not overly alarmed by these symptoms at first because they were leaps and bounds better than the migraines I was experiencing over the summer. The neurologist called for an emergency eye exam coupled with an MRI, MRV, and spinal tap. Luckily, these tests confirmed no tumors (MRI), no aneurysms (MRV), and no other weird diseases (spinal tap). Unluckily, the eye exam and spinal tap did confirm increased cranial pressure, which resulted in a new prescription of medicine. Also, the spinal tap and resulting spinal headache were quite horrible and left me horizontal for a decent chunk of the past week. Did you know that they need to leave the spinal tap needle in your back for ten to fifteen minutes while collecting fluid? I sure as heck did not. Eugh.

When I look back on the past six months, in light of recent events, I can't help but think that God has a plan. Does that make me a religious hokey? Maybe. Is it possibly because I am sick of stressing and thinking about the plan of my own and want to give it up to God? Probably. Either way, it's safe to say that no fetus would have wanted to be growing under all the physical stress that I have endured over the past six months. Further, my new brain-fixing medicine is not safe for growing babies nor pregnant ladies, so I'll be taking it slow for at least another six months, minimum. It makes me so anxious to think of what I would be going through if I had this issue while pregnant and I am thankful every day that it happened while I am not.

For now, I'm going to focus on me for a bit with particular emphasis on taking care of myself and my health. After all, I still have over two more years until I'm 32 ;-)

*A.K.A.: The big man upstairs, the universe, Allah, Jehova, Yahweh, the almighty, and/or creator.

World Tour

One year and four months ago, almost to the day, my accounting job at one of the nation's top broadcasting and digital media companies moved myself, my husband, our dog, and as many of our worldly possessions as we could afford to ship or fit into a U-haul...to Texas. 

This came as a shock to many for various reasons. (1) Texas is...well, Texas. It's in the middle of the country. There's a lot of dirt and cows and people that say y'all. Granted, we were being moved to Austin which, as any good Texan will tell you, is a blue dot in a sea of red. At least they weren't moving us to Lubbock (sorry, readers from Lubbock!). (2) Very few people from Central Jersey ever leave Central Jersey -- land of unicorns, rainbows, and porkroll. (3) 97% of my family, friends, and people I knew in general lived in the 365-mile, 6-hour stretch of land that bordered the Atlantic Ocean and extended from D.C. to Connecticut.

Husband and I in Austin, TX

Regardless, Husband and I packed up our things, sold our home, said our good-bye's, and became Texans.

I started working in Texas a few weeks a month in April 2017. By August 2017 we were residents. And by January 2018 we knew that Texas was just not going to be the place for us. We loved the city of Austin in general -- the creative restaurants, the walkability, the friendly and outdoorsy vibe, the live country music at literally every bar you went to, and the college-town feel (hook 'em!). Even "Dirty" 6th Street grew on us. But the stress of my demanding job, the heat -- man -- the heat, and the lack of proximity to family really started to set in. We were torn on the decision to leave Austin and to look for living arrangements elsewhere because we had made so many really great friends there in such a short time -- the thought of leaving them was heartbreaking. In our hearts we knew that leaving was ultimately the right decision and that friends would be friends no matter the distance between. In April 2018, I gave my one-month notice at work and by June 2018 we were packed up again, driving across the country, and moving back to the East Coast.

You can take the girl from the ocean, but you can't take the ocean from the girl.

I think I always knew, deep down, that I would need to live by the ocean. Over the years, I stuffed that thought down, pushed it away, sat on it, pretended like it didn't exist, or -- worse -- told myself it was a weakness. Moving to Texas helped me realize that it's just part of who I am and that's ok and definitely not a weakness or something to be ashamed of. Fittingly, after much deliberation on the husband and wife front, Husband and I decided to move to Boston, Massachusetts. Near the ocean? Check. Smaller city with restaurants, museums, and things to do in general? Check. Good job market? Double check. Closer to family? Five hours versus twenty-seven!

View from our bedroom in Revere Beach

I immediately felt at home in Boston.

We moved to a small neighborhood called Revere Beach, which is six T-stops outside of city center. We found an amazing apartment that is on the ocean and close to near-by areas like Cambridge, Gloucester, and even Cape Code and Portsmouth, NH. We assume our family and friends approve of our new location as we've had almost non-stop visitors each weekend since September -- even some of those friends we love so much from Texas! We know the dog approves -- he can't get enough of people watching on the deck and walks on the beach chasing the seagulls. Husband and I were able to find new jobs immediately, which was reassuring and definitely an ego boost. I started in late June 2018 working as a Controller for a distributed elastic SQL database company -- say that five times fast! -- in Cambridge and Husband started in early July 2018 working as a Tax Supervisor for one of the largest accounting firms in the world in Boston's Financial District -- did you catch my proud wife moment, there?

Community Boating on the Charles River

Since we've moved back to Boston, I've been able to get back into sailing through a wonderful organization in Beacon Hill called Community Boating and Husband's been reffing multiple hockey games each weekend. In all fairness, he was able to ref hockey games in Texas, too, but it always seemed so foreign there and often felt, to me at least, just plain wrong. There's something really comical about Southerners watching a hockey game -- 'get the puck y'all!'.

In summation, we're unsure of if Boston is our forever home, but it's a pretty awesome for-now home. We've been able to check a lot of our must-have boxes off through moving to Boston and that's definitely a win in my book.

P.S.: If you're going to keep reading through the older posts, judge lightly. Those were written by a different (and younger) me at a different time -- but they're all-in-all too hilarious to get rid of ;-)