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Recovering from Brain Surgery

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about being diagnosed with an unruptured aneurysm. I have had a lot of feedback and questions about my recovery after brain surgery. I wanted to talk about my first week after my surgery and how my recovery went.

I had a Craniotomy/Brain Surgery on Tuesday September 11th, 2007 at Emory in Atlanta. I was in Neuro ICU for 24 hours. I was then moved to the Neuro unit until I was ready to go home. I slept for the majority of the days and nights while I was in the hospital. I was able to eat regular food the day after surgery. My head hurt like I was run over by a fleet of Mack trucks. But the doctor's kept me doped up on Morphine, which kept me happy and sleepy. The biggest complaint I had, besides the 47 staples in my skull, was that my right eye was completely swollen shut. Noone really confirmed why, but from the bits and pieces of what I heard, when the surgeon opened my head, he pulled my skin down to my eye which caused trauma and a ton of swelling.

I was released from the hospital on Saturday after my surgery. I live alone, but was not able to go home alone until I could get approval from my surgeon.
So, I stayed with my parents. I had a bit of trouble with balance and walking. I had to sleep and stay on the first level of their house for the first few days to be on the safe side. I slept pretty much all day and night for the first 2-3 days I was home. The more I stayed laying down and slept, the more my eye stayed swollen shut because of the fluid.
My parents were a huge part of my recovery in that they really pushed me to get up and move around. My Mom and I started taking short walks (the advice of my surgeon) several times a day. This helped with my balance and swelling of my eye, but I scared the neighbor kids. Thank goodness they only shaved a small portion of my head, and not all of my hair!

My head was sore, especially if I put any kind of pressure on my staples or the right side of my head. But, my headaches were gone!! I had no memory loss whatsoever, which was apparently a concern. After about 5 days, the swelling in my eye had gone down a great deal. And I was even able to see out of it. On day 12 after my surgery, I went home to live alone. I even drove myself! I felt great! Not at all like I had been through brain surgery. But I felt especially great because I did not have to worry about the aneurysm rupturing.

Until next time.....