jhelms

Susan~ Bravo to you for venting. You all are so much further ahead with this process than I ever was at this point. I thought I was being over dramatic and a big baby. That I was perfectly fine and just going nuts. It has been 4 years and I am just now finding answers. It amazes me every day, how NOT normal I am compared to the me before. On the outside I am 100% the same person, but like you said, connections in my brain are fried! You would think that these doctors would spend more time researching the after effects and recovery. So little is known. Or at least , listen to what you are saying, even if there is nothing they can do. Post it notes are my friend. I make to do list, every day. If I don't, then I am lost and unable to complete a task . My mind bounces around from here to there, and I have to focus on one thing at a time, marking them off as I go. I have even been guilty a time or two of writing a note to remind me of why I am going to a room. I get sick of not remembering. Conversations on some days are harder than some. I will be in the middle of a story and forget what I am saying. Typical things you wouldn't expect of a 34 year old. It does get better with time. It does get better when you realize that it is normal . The crying gets better when you honor that it is part of healing , and it is okay to let it out. The hardest part of it all, explaining all of it to your loved ones. They want so badly for us to be ok, and maybe on the outside we are. How do you get them to understand what you are going through in your head? I will never forget the day my husband finally listened to what I had been telling him all along. I feel like something is broken in my head. Like my brain is misfiring, and not making connections as it should with emotions , decision making, stress....He started searching and found this site. He now understands. Let your family and loved ones look at this site. It will help them understand what you are going through. He is so much better now, in dealing with me .

I am also very distant from my inlaws. They are a very loud bunch ...not knocking but they are Italians, which are known to be loud and very vocal. LOL It blows my nerves up because I am very quiet spoken. I was before , but really am now. Very sensitive to loud talking , even if it is all in fun and lighthearted.

Oh goodness, Yes! I play off of others frustrations big time! there is a tone in my husbands voice, that instantly shatters me and my nerves. I don't really know what it is, but he doesn't see it , and he is not angry or stressed at the time, but it comes across as panic in his voice to me. The gotta gotta gotta do this and that and this and that. And on the days where my kids are super hyper, usually because we have been to see the grandparents and they have filled them full of sugar, it totally wrecks me. I love them to the moon and back and I know they are just kids being kids, but there are days that I can not handle anymore. Those days, I do my best to get outside, or even go somewhere alone , so that I can unwind.

Hi all ~ The reason I asked about chiropractic, is because it was the only thing that stopped my headache. Once I started seeing a good chiropractor, several of the lingering issues , went away. I honestly believe that a little sublaxation goes a long way , in nerve transmission to and from the brain. Plus it helps the spinal fluid, move with ease. I do not know anything about chiropractic over the pond, but here it has been a Godsend. Just some friendly advice, and hope that it will help.

Winb~ waiting? To see a chiropractor. Sometimes I forget that you guys are from all over. Does that have to do with your healthcare having to wait? How did the acupuncture go? Did it help?

Have any of you used chiropractic in your recovery?

Lawson~ Yes it is normal, or it was for me. I would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. No energy and I felt very bad. I had a newborn and a 5 year old at the time of mine. I came out of the hospital, after being there for the first month of my son's life, trying to be super mom, and do all the things like normal. The further out from it you get, the more good days you will have, and the bad days will be farther apart. Don't let the bad days get you down too much because it is part of recovery. There is a lot of peace in knowing that. Just kind of honor the bad days knowing that they will pass, and try not to over do it on the good days. You are still so close in. I am 4 years out from mine and every day it gets better. Listen to your body. The brain heals when it is at rest. So, if you can...rest. I do not know if you have looked at the "two weeks and BAM" thread , but please do. You will see that you are not alone in how you feel. I am just glad that you have found this site right off the bat. It will help more than you can imagine. I went through for 4 years, knowing nothing about the recovery. I thought I was just plain crazy. You are on the right track. Hang in there! ~Jessica

Wem~ Honor those bad days, and go into it with the understanding that ,"this too shall pass." I personally have found that it does help to break the cycle and shorten my down times...emotionally. It is a hard FUNK to shake though, and I totally understand and am understanding more since finding this site. Knowing why, is a major part of the battle for me. Now that i know that I am not the only one or just plane CRAZY or LAZY, I feel a million times better. I hope I can speak for everyone when I say...We got ya! It is that history of being go getters and fighters, that has gotten us ALL this far. Any weaker of a person, would just plain GIVE UP! That is what is going to get us all through this! We will get our "Happy" back.

Thanks for the feed back, guys! Skippy~ I don't think so. They are so common here in the US. But, with that being said, inserting a needle into ones spine, there is a very small margin of error. I wonder if it has anything to do with going past the epidural space and puncturing or injecting the medicine into the wrong space. Also, could it be a bad run of that spinal epidural medicine? I just have a lot of questions, and I have had 4 years to ponder them. I am finally in a group of people who all have SAH or other brain bleed in common. We all have the basic recovery story and side effects, and out of my own curiosity, I wanted to see if anyone shared this part of my story.

My SAH came three days after having a c-section for my second child. In one of my many trips back to the ER, I was told by one of the nurses, that a woman had come through the ER a week prior to me, totally unresponsive, and had had a SAH. She didn't think that she had made it. She also had just had a baby a few day prior. I was wondering if there are any similar stories on here. At the time of mine, Brett Michaels had had a SAH following a surgery he had. He also has received an epidural, and I have heard of a few others that suffered a SAH after an epidural. When I have had any medical procedure since, I have to tell them about my SAH and the history behind it. The nurses always ask if I received an epidural and when I reply yes, they always make a noise of understanding, as if the epidural caused my SAH. Could this be true? It has always been my gut feeling it did. One thing is for sure, I had no signs of any AVM's. It seemed to have happened with no cause or reason, and it cleared with no medical intervention. Any body else experience this?

David~ Actually my husband found this group in his quest to find out, what the hell happened to my wife. LOL And I am so thankful that he cares enough to search for answers when I had given up hope, and gave into just being plane crazy. With the soda bubbles, mine is at the back of my head, where my necks joins the skull. It will feel like little tiny bubbles bursting as they move up into my head. Funny how weather changes bring on auras and headaches. I have never been a migraine getter, but I am now. Dessy~ I am about as far away from the UK as it can get. LOL I am from Alabama in the US, and if you know anything about the US, us southerners have our own language and slang too. I still get you though, and no I do not think you are mad, or nuts, or anything else..LOL I am glad that we found y'all too, David. Truly a blessing.

That is just it Daffodil! To everyone, we are "normal" and "ok" , business as usual. They don't see all of our downs, or know how things can throw us into a tail spin. It is not our fault . Believe me, there are some days that I feel like the worst mother in the world because my kids just being kids, can throw me into a tail spin. There is so much peace that comes to me, knowing that this is common and I am not crazy. Up until this point, I thought I was. I didn't understand the bad days when I am so tired and down, and it spirals into a deep depression. Then it is like a fog clears and I am up and ready to go at it again. My husband didn't understand and I didn't know how to help him. I thought I might by bipolar or skitzo, and just when I was at my witts end, we found this site. Not a moment too soon. LOL I was ready to reserve my padded room in the nut hut. Why do they not tell us what we possibly could expect? Why do they pat us on the back and leave us with nothing? There really isn't a lot out there to find answers either. I have no idea how to explain to my family what I go through. I have tried talking to my Mom some, and she basically tells me that I have to put on my big girl undies and move on. Like I am holding on to what happened to me and letting it rule me. I am not doing that....it is holding on to me. I am trying my hardest to move on and it keeps pulling me back. Thank you all so much for sharing your stories and lending your advice. You have no idea how much it helps. When I do have a bad day, now I know what it is, why it is happening, and can just roll with it. It amazes me how much faster and less severe the bad days are. Does anyone ever still get the soda bubble feeling in the back of their head? Does that ever go away?

woooohoooooooooooo!

Desy~ I think we all needed to hear that. I have felt very guilty because I feel like a wuss complaining, when there are so many that "have it worse". David ~ I have been right where you are. Just give your body time, and it will heal. They say that with any brain trauma, sleeping is the time the brain repairs itself and rewires connections. Here we are fighting against that trying to put on our big girl and big boy undies and cowboy through it , getting back to the grindstone. I honestly think it is what holds us back in a way. I wish there was a way to make time stop and responsibilities to wait while we slept this off like a bad drunk. LOL The love and support form a wonderful spouse goes a long way. I try to keep mine in the loop on how I am feeling and let him know all the time how much he is appreciated, although I do not think there are ever enough words to fully let them know. God it is so nice to talk with people who understand. I do promise you that it gets a little better as time goes on. Set backs happen, but they get further apart and less intense. I am serious when I say, I had no answers or no measure of what is normal in recovery from this. I thought I was just a big baby or going nuts. There is a lot of peace that came for me in knowing I wasn't alone. This is all part of it. That it does get better with time and that it is ok for set backs to tick me off. For the first time in the 4 years, my husband and I took a vacation without the kids. It was just the 2 of us and I had no one to worry about but myself. No one demanding anything from me, or to be responsible for. Although I caved by Wednesday and drove three hours one way to get my babies, those 3 days were what my soul needed .

David~ One thing I have found is that you HAVE to take the time for yourself. You can't always go on the back burner. Mary~ I totally understand the emotion side of things. I always feel like I lost part of me and who I was prior to this. It is like something is broken , but you can't put your finger on it. Stress... I can no longer handle or process stress . It sends my body into a tail spin. Iola... how are you doing? Do you still get the soda bubbles? Those would always scare me so bad. I expected something bad to follow. From everything I read it is normal and harmless, but that far out, everything is a symptom and scary! I hope that you are doing well.