I got the stupid “lumbar puncture” and it was HOR.I.BLE.
I think I could have handled it if the procedure was an in and out kind of thing…
But it was not.
Not even close, actually.
They don’t even give you anything pre-procedure for anxiety or ANYTHING.
What.The. Is all I have to say about that.

Anyway.
So the play-by-play of a spinal tap goes something like this (in case you ever find yourself in need of one, at least you will know what to expect… unlike me)
***
I walked back to the procedure area where I immediately commenced with a HUGE internal, that soon turned external, freakout. I really don’t know what came over me except that all of the sudden all I could think about was that someone was about to jab an extra-long needle so far into my back that it would probably get perilously close to my lungs. Obviously I was having a slight overreaction. (Let us be sure to emphasize the word, “slight”.)
One of the techs, whose name was Katie, asked me if I was ok.
Ha! “Am I ok”, I thought? AM I OK?! I wanted to scream at her, “Would YOU be ok?”
Even though my mind was screaming at Katie, my mouth did not.
I just politely told her that I was having a rather large attack of the nerves, to which she responded by telling me that she understood but that everything was going to be “ok”. (Again with the “ok”. At this point I decided that I wasn’t a huge fan of Katie’s.)

I was told to lie down on my stomach. Rather shakily, I obliged. The other tech, whose name I don’t know, was really nice to me and put his hand on my shoulder to try and calm the shakes out of me. The doctor came in and immediately my eyes seemed no longer able to hold in the tears. The doctor proceeded to tell me what he was going to do (a speech I heard little of due to what I believe are called internal defenses) and then he asked me if I had any questions. While I was shaking my head in the negative my mind was asking the doctor if it was ok for me to leave yet.

The first thing I remember after that, the doctor was saying something about how this was going to be the worst part and how it was going to burn a bit. The word, “burn”, alerted me. I am all too familiar with “burn” and I immediately tensed. The doctor was “numbing” (aka: giving me a few shots of lidocaine) the area of my back that he was going to “puncture” so that I wouldn’t “feel it”. Ha! I did not realize then that the doctor was making a joke.

A few minutes passed by and the doctor decided that it was time for the party to start. He told me he was going to insert the needle and that I was going to feel some “pressure”. Again, I was alerted. Whenever doctors have said that phrase to me in the past, it has ALWAYS, quite without fail, meant that pain will follow.

This instance was no different, except I had an announcer of sorts giving me the run-down of everything he was doing.
“Alright, Kelly,” the doctor said. “I am pushing the needle in a third of the way. Here comes a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle pressure.”
Kelly moans in pain.
“Okay. I’m going to push the needle in again…. moooooooore presssssssssssure….”
Kelly starts shaking and crying, albeit, silently.
“Last push and we’ll be all the way in. Pressurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre…..”
Kelly moans in pain once again. Kelly is wishing that someone would have thought to knock her out for this process.
“Alright, Kelly,” said the doctor. “Now it’s just going to take some time to collect the fluid we need. Please try to stay still so the needle does not move.”
Kelly freezes as though she’s been paralyzed. “Wait, wait,” she says internally. “No one said ANYTHING about the needle just SITTING there. I can feel it in there for pete’s-sake. How long does it have to stay there for? Ow. This SUCKS. I can feeeeeeeel IT! I seriously feel like puking right now. WHY did they NOT put me out for this? WHY??”

At this point in the procedure the nice tech asked me if I was feeling ok.
I promptly told him no and that I felt like I was going to be sick. Alarmed, the doctor asked me if I was going to vomit. I said, “Not yet…” To which the nice tech responded with putting a cold towel on my neck. (I was pretty sure I loved him at that point.)

It took about TWENTY MINUTES for the fluid to be collected. Yeah. Twen.Ty. And it was pure torture. I could feel just where the needle was and it just made me sick. It wasn’t like I just felt all this pain for twenty minutes, because it wasn’t like that. It was just that I knew that it was there. I could also feel it in there… really, really deep in there. And it made my stomach upset and my mind go kuh-razy. So.bad.

About halfway through the fluid collection phase I piped up and started abusing the nice tech as to why it was taking so long. He told me that the flow was about “average” and that “we” were halfway there.
ONLY. HALFWAY? And just WHAT is that “WE” business? That’s like when people say “WE are pregnant.” (I hate that… but I digress.)
I almost sat up with rage. I was sooo mad that I was at a loss for words. I just started to cry silently again.
And then the tech said, “Whoa.”
Yeah. Let me tell you. “Whoa,” is not a word you wanna hear when you have a foot long needle stuck inside of you.
Then he said, “Your flow just sped way up… this shouldn’t take too much longer.” ~ahem. lie.~
I asked, “Where is the doctor?” It has just occurred to me that I could no longer sense his horrific presence.
“He stepped out for a minute. He’ll be back when we’re about done.”
I don’t know… for some reason I thought that when a patient has a million foot needle stuck inside them, that doctors stick around for the WHOLE time it’s in there. Apparently, my assumptions were wrong.

After what seemed like FOREVER the tech pulled out the needle and pronounced the spinal tap over. I responded with crying. The tech let Tyson into the room and the crying got worse.
Not only did the procedure hurt, to me, it was like mind torture. I HATED knowing that the needle was in there, just how FAR it was in there, and that even though it wasn’t what I would term “painful”, I could still feeel it in there. ~shudder~

After a spinal tap you are supposed to lay flat on your back. For a LONG time. (This is what my eye doctor told me when he was ordering this procedure for me.) Well. After my spinal tap, I was “lucky” enough to only have to lay flat on my back for one. hour. And then, I was free to go. With NO discharge instructions. NONE.
Even I know that this is unheard of.

Not only was I free to go, I had to WALK (in my case, waddle) my way out of the hospital after such a horrific procedure. I could NOT believe that I didn’t even merit a WHEELCHAIR, for crying out loud! That procedure was no walk in the park…. I totally thought a wheelchair was in order. Alas, I was the only one who felt that way and waddle my way out to the car I did.

THREE. days. later. (said like the French announcer on Spongebob)
I am still laying FLAT on my back because I got the dreaded spinal headache. This is a horrific headache that results from a spinal tap “sometimes”. (Yeah… sometimes when you don’t lay flat on your back for long enough.) This horrific headache rears its ugly head every time you get up off your back. Your head literally feels as if it will explode. And you also get to feel REALLY nauseous as well. Yep. I haven’t showered in a day and a half now because the last time I did shower it took three hours for the resulting headache to go away even after I was laying flat on my back. The spinal headache SUCKS and it better go away soon. (Cuz next week is my last week of my Biology class and I CANNOT miss it.)

The results from the tap came in already and it looks like I have high pressure in my spinal column, which is indicative of a pseudotumor. (Hence the “whoa” to my flow, I guess…) I am not going to explain what a pseudotumor is here because it will take too long, is really boring, and it’s not even conclusive if that’s what I have. So click the link if you are interested. For those that aren’t, suffice it to say that a pseudotumor acts like a tumor but isn’t a tumor. Now I get to take a diuretic pill FOUR times EVERY day to see if my symptoms go away. If the meds work, then I do indeed have a pseudotumor. If not, it is back to the drawing board. By the way, the dirutic pill is making me pee like I am TEN months pregnant and I LOVE it. (ha!)

Wow. That is one long post.
Who read the whole thing?
Really.
Who made it?