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Elizabeth47

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Everything posted by Elizabeth47

  1. He was reading more than he ever did at first but even then it gave him headaches. Now, it is more like before, he just doesn't make the time. Basically, he is working half the amount he was before....sort of. He is only seeing 1/2 the number of patients he used to see but in the same amount of time. ( So he sees 10 patients in the morning instead of 20.) He just moves slower. He is not doing nearly the number of large cases that he was before but instead more smaller cases. He has a schedule that his scheduler is supposed to follow: ie, if I am on call on Monday then only schedule 1 case on Tuesday instead of 3 in case I am on call... Unfortunately, lately his scheduler has quit doing that and so he was going to talk with her about that. Everyone just expects him to ramp up to normal, which he doesn't want to do... He is actually pacing himself really well with the exception of call, which he has no choice on. If he could quit call, he would in a heartbeat. The neurologist that he is seeing now agrees his schedule is good at the moment. I'm not quite sure what you mean by adjust our lifestyle... We take walks on our place several times a week. We spent a week away for our 25th wedding anniversary. He also took a week staycation this summer as well. He has always taken 6 weeks off each year to be with the family, more than any other doc and has gotten ribbed for that some. He makes plenty of money and we save 1/2 of it each year and it was worth more to us than the extra money. We have two different parent weekends in September which we make into camping weekends. Then we have a camping trip just for us in October. I'm off to read neilhapgood`s http://www.braininjuryftp.com/ Like I said, work has never been his focus, his family has been.... Maybe I confused you guys by what I said, but it is the fact that he liked to be busy at home. So he and the boys would cut down a tree or fix fence. He doesn't feel like he is ok unless he is being productive. Now he counts playing a game with the boys as being productive as well. But some of our crazy louder family board games bother him after 20 minutes or so... He can't watch war games with the boys ( he has to look away as the frenetic action bothers him... We went to see J the new urassic Park on a big screen with 3d glasses, big mistake. That so bothered him.... ) He has started learning to play the guitar and that seems to be relaxing for him and isn't bothering him. That is what has been hard. He doesn't sit still well and his usual methods of relaxation ( cutting down a tree) just didn't work anymore.
  2. I will have to ask.. We tried dancing when we were dating and first married, but he has no sense of rhythm and cannot lead and I took dance for 12 years, so then I would try to lead. We got into an argument every time and decided in our first year of marriage that we wouldn't dance anymore for the sake of our marriage. Grin...
  3. The problem is that he gets home at 7 or so, and that is too late for him to cook. We go to bed at 9pm since his alarm goes off at 4:30, so we need to go to bed soon after. Plus, he often only eats something light like a sandwich or yogurt or something as if he eats something heavy that late he has bad heartburn. On the weekends, if he isn't on call, then he will grill. Our big meal of the day is typically lunch.
  4. I'm not sure I made myself clear. I am asking because my husband is frustrated, not me. Before his bleed, I LONGED for him to just sit on the swing with me... He tried, but after a few attempts he had to bring our vacation or something to work on. I longed to take walks...which we do now. But my husband does not know how to just be. He sees watching tv as a waste of time. He should be doing something. I would be thrilled for him to just sit and rest, but he doesn't know how.... Yes, we normally have a large garden but we didn't do it this year. We still have our fruit trees and bushes. I made tons of blackberry jam and am so sick of pears that I could scream. I've made three batches of pear jam, put up 20 quarts of pears, made 2 pear pies, 4 pear cakes, and 15 loaves of pear bread... He does like to cook, but here is part of our problem. He is losing weight with the stress. ( He is 6 ft and now 145 pounds..) I, on the other hand, after being put on an anti-depressant have been steadily gaining weight which my husband hates.. I am 5ft 6 and 160.... We have switched as I used to be 140 and he was 160. He loves making breads and desserts, but I gain weight if I look at them.... Frustrating... Anyway, he just doesn't know what to do with himself or rather he is so exhausted after a day of clinic or surgery that he collapses and watches tv with me and feels like a failure. He has so many things he wants to do and feels useless...
  5. My husband pre brain bleed was constantly moving. His alarm goes off at 4:30. He would exercise, take a shower and head to the hospital by 6 or so. He would do clinic or surgeries. If he got home early at 5 or 6 then he would change clothes and go outside and fix a fence, or tend the cows or do a home improvement project. My husband makes lists and so he would have 75 things on his weekend off to get done. Now some of those might be play a game with one child or go fishing with another. I never had to give him a to do list. I remember one morning he got up and noticed my sink was slow and fixed it at 5:30am.. So he had the brain bleed last October. He can only do a partial amount of surgeries... Reading bothers him. The chaos of clinic bothers him. Working out on our farm, he still enjoys but an hour or two of that exhausts him. Surfing on the computer to compare prices on things gives him a headache. My husband has never just sat around. Before the bleed, maybe once a year he would sit in a chair all day and watch football or basketball and it was normally because he didn't feel well and he would apologize to me for being such a bum. So what in the world is someone like this supposed to do to relax now that his stamina is gone???? When so many things give him headaches.... (the stress and lack of sleep on the job doesn't help... He was up till 3:30 am the other night when he was on call) He doesn't sit around well... Yet mental things seem to give him a headache as well.... I just don't get what someone who isn't even 50 yet is supposed to do....
  6. Thank you. I am going to send this to my husband. He is so frustrated at how little it takes for his energy to be depleted... Before he worked 70-90 hours a week as a surgeon. Now he only works 35 and is completely exhausted and his partners don't get it. He looks fine on the outside. I really wish he didn't have to take call... Thanks again for the article. There has been so little written about this. His first neuro guy told him to take off 2 weeks and then go back to work... I now know that was way too soon, but we cannot go back...
  7. Hey! I can answer this one. The perimesencephalic hemorrhage is one where there is blood only in a particular part of the brain. Now technically it is a nonaneurysmic one as well. These have the best outcomes. Then there are the nonaneurysmic ones that bleed outside of this perimesencephalic part of the brain or in a different part altogether. They are suspicious in these that there may actually be an aneurysm that they can't see or went away... My husbands was mainly perimesencephalic but has a little bit of bleed into another area as well. Clear as mud?
  8. You guys are preaching to the choir. My husband hates how he feels but will not slow down. To be honest, I'm not sure he can. He is working half time and we will see at the end of the first quarter if that will pay expenses...
  9. YES!!! My husband "only" had a bleed with no apparent cause so no surgery and spent only a week in ICU, but the 3rd week when he was home his legs and his back were killing him. Now my hubby is a no pain killer kind of guy so he just gutted through it. But it was a hard go. We would go walking daily on our property. After that it started to taper off. Now that doesn't bother him at all. If only the headaches would go away. if anything, those are worse. But yes, my husband had an identical experience. It surprised him for his legs to bother him that much.
  10. Thanks Daffodil, That post was very helpful.
  11. Would that be what he needs if he had aperimesencephalic hemorrhage ? He had no neurologic or physical deficits. I'm about halfway through A Dented Image.
  12. No, the neurologists are his collegues and they just tell him headaches are normal side effects and it may take up to 2 years... In fact one told him he'd feel like a new man in January because he was a doc he would recover much more quickly... ?????? Because of who he is.... Sigh.. Remember, they were the ones that only kept him for a week in ICU ( I see many others stayed 3 weeks or more) and told him he could return to work 2 weeks after that.... I was floored when I read on here that many people were off work for 3 to 6 months. He was off 3 weeks....
  13. I am not his mother. I get that and in the past I would never tell my husband what to do… And yet…He has been asking me quite a bit what he should do and I have been giving him my advice, yet I feel like I am taking away some of his manhood. Yet, the bleed has made differences in him that he isn’t willing to acknowledge. I mentioned to him ( thank you therapist) that before the stroke, he worked at 100 to 110 percent of his capacity with little room for margin. He was finally starting to make choices to give himself some room for margin and our dates together as well as just down time for him. But now after his bleed his capacity is at least 50 percent lower if not more. But he is working at that and more… However, now if he does that it affects him for many days after that… So, Saturday the men of our church are doing some major yardwork at a facility that is being changed into a halfway house for victims of the sex trade. I mentioned that our son would be doing it and hubby said that maybe he would do it as well…. To which, before I could stop myself I said are you sure you should think about last weekend. ( Last weekend is the first time since the stroke that he did some work outside. He pruned some bushes in our backyard bed and threw them over the fence. We are talking 45 minutes of work and he had a bad headache and had to sit and rest for awhile before he went and put the hay out for the cows.) I know him. If he goes, he will work. He will not want to look like a wimp, but he would pay for it severely…. I am not his mom. But what he chooses to do affects me! And he doesn't choose wisely in my mind. His first trip back to the operating room just a month after the bleed he did a tough 3 hour case.... I had suggested he do a simple 30 minute case, but no..... When he overdoes it at work or if he chooses to do this work day, then he will have a horrible headache and I will be rubbing his head. He will be too tired for sex or for fun conversation. As my therapist said, everybody else gets the best part of him and I get the leftovers. ( And yes, I mentioned this to him .) So where is the boundary line? How do let him make his own choices and suffer the consequences and yet not suffer myself. What do I say or not say?? I know that most of you on this forum are dealing with those that are learning to walk again, talk again and your position is much harder than mine. I know I shouldn't complain as he is doing SO well and this could have been SO much worse.
  14. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to know about non call jobs in his specialty. To be honest, we investigated this even before the stroke but could not find any such job. I asked on a board of medical spouses and they didn't know of any... The half time here would be just fine. We could live with that. It is the call that kills him. He had to go in last night and finished at midnight... Left at 6am this morning... Sigh....
  15. Thank you. What makes this so hard is my husband keeps asking me what he should do.I really do feel helpless.
  16. . I just don't know... I feel so helpless just watching him.
  17. Thanks. I just bought the book for my ipad. I'll start reading it today.
  18. He has tried to explain. He was talking about the headaches and one of his colleagues said, "oh yeah I had the worst headache the other day.... " They don't get it... Plus, I wonder if by acknowledging that the difficulties are real, then it means that they are just as vulnerable... If you had picked a person for this to happen to, it would not have been my husband. His blood pressure has always been low ( 100/60), his cholesterol is around 90. He is 6 foot and 155 pounds.. ( 150 when he left the hospital...) But yes, there is a part of pride involved as well... My husband just doesn't know what to do. He is staying at half time permanently. He will only work until lunch except the days he has to take call. We are going to see if he is making his overhead and then some at the end of March. If he isn't, then I guess he will have no choice but to quit. Or if the call weekend goes badly at he end of the month and he feels like he just cannot do weekend call, then I guess he will have to quit as well.... But what in the heck does a type A surgeon do with himself if he isn't operating????? You have taken away a giant part of who he is.
  19. Yes, that video was very helpful. I will have my husband start watching it from about minute 12 on. I try to be grateful that he is still here. I am grateful. It just feels so unsettled. It sounds like it may take him up to 2 years to fully recover, so it is hard to make a decision now. I think he should be off call for another 3 months but I don't think the hospital or his partners would go for that... Thanks so much everyone..
  20. Ok, he never lost consciousness. He just had the worst headache of his life. His neck got stiff. He couldn't put his head down as it felt like it was about to explode. It looks like this is for those that lost consciousness.
  21. His collegueges have been patient, but as I said, looking at him you cannot tell that anything is wrong. They want him to pull his weight again..... That is why he is considering quitting. But you cannot do his specialty without taking call and so that would mean not working..... Then you lose skills. He cannot take off for a year or two and then just jump into the operating room. We are at a loss. They will be having a meeting this week and he doesn't know what to tell them...
  22. No He is not working 7am to 8pm every day. It was only that day that he had to take call. Things came into the ER that he had to take care of. Most days, he tries to be through by early afternoon. His partners wonder when he is going to be ramping back up........ And his specialty is very much...it takes 6 weeks for a broken bone to heal. There are concrete times to recover, so his own recovery is very frustrating as no one can seem to give us answers... He is wondering whether or not to take disability....but for headaches and fatigue....as I said that makes him seem wimpy. He also can only answer emails or be on the computer for short amount of times. Watching an action flick makes him dizzy during the fight scenes if they are fast... If he could do his job without taking call, then it might be ok... But call is brutal. And he is wondering if the added stress and call might make him have another one. I'm off to watch the video link.
  23. My husband had subarachnoid bleed in late September 2014. They never found a cause. They kept him in ICU for observation for a week and then let him go home . The doc told him to stay home for 2 weeks and then do as much as he could handle... He had no deficits physically or mentally. My husband is a very busy surgeon in the states. (or was) He was a very type A personality. I never had to give him a to do list. Every weekend he was off he would have a list of 50 to 75 things to accomplish around our farm/house/with the kids, etc. Before this event, I could count on one hand the amount of times my husband actually sat on the couch to watch an entire football game... The couple of years before the incident were VERY stressful with things I don't want to get into. We are sure this caused the bleed, though there isn't any medical literature that says so. After 3 weeks he went back, though very slowly. November and December he wasn't even quite up to half time and his partners took over his call. ( He normally has to be on call 7 or 8 days each month, which normally includes a weekend each month.) Right now he generally either does surgeries until around lunchtime or sees patients in clinic until lunchtime ( though he only sees 8 to 10 rather than the 25 or so he used to see in a morning.) Surgeries are fine. Clinic however is horrible. He feels so slow and it gives him such a headache. He feels like his short term memory is worse. His partners covered call for 3 months, but now he is having to take it again. First time was ok, but the second time he was operating from 7am to 8pm and was completely wiped out. Sleep and stress are of course, a problem. At home, he doesn't do anymore projects and sits and rests A LOT. He's read more books in the last couple of months than in our 25 year marriage. His headaches and stamina are still bad. He had some more tests and went back to the neurologist in December who said it would get better with time and he would feel much better by January. NOT.... On the outside, he looks completely fine. We've looked at the medical literature and they go into what great outcomes those that have his type of bleed ( non aneurysmal ) do and yet it is about mortality not quality of life... The docs seem to have the attitude that since he is a surgeon, he will be just fine because he has the motivation and drive...... My husband feels like a wimp.... He is going back to talk to the neurologist, but I'm not looking for much help... Can you guys point me to any studies or literature or something or are we really just in uncharted territory.... Will it really continue to get better? His headaches, if anything, are worse... His stamina might be getting a little bit better... His partners would like answers. We are only in our 40's. I'm a homeschooling mom who has launched one and will launch another one in May. We will only have an 8th grader next year. I'm just at a loss..... Thanks for any help, Elizabeth
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