Another of the offshoot A to Z posts today. Today is B for brain.

About a week into my absolutely crippling headache, after they’d worked out I was photosensitive, that I was struggling with my vision on my right side, and was showing more and more evidence of a stroke, I was told I had to go for some scans on my brain.
Thunderclap headaches, like I was describing, are often linked to strokes, aneurisms, and more. And the longer we left it, even though I wasn’t getting worse, the worse the outcome could have been for me. (again, spoiler, I’m mostly fine.  Well, I have a still permanent migraine, but there’s nothing on my scans).
But today, I thought I’d talk about some of the things I experience when I go for scans like CTs, MRIs and more.

Firstly, they’ve found my brain, it’s definitely in there 😉

CT’s – the easy one

I think I’ve had close to 40 CT’s in my life. I have a neck and back injury from falling down our stairs (the banister let go), and I don’t mind them nearly as much as MRI’s. CT’s are usually quite quick, and while you can often wear your own clothes when going in for that, you do till need to be aware of anything metal as it’ll interfere with the picture. You might have to drink a liquid if the CT is around your stomach or intestines.  It’s disgusting – the barium drink isn’t nice, at all, but it makes sure they can see everything they need to. There’s also a CT with dye – that requires a drip in your vein so they can ‘inject’ a dye into you.  And I’ll be honest about this, that dye feels like you’re peeing yourself.  For some reason, many people experience it as a warmth in their pelvis and, in my case, a slight tightness in my chest and flush to my face (that said, I also taste it when they run drips – more on that in a sec).
They started with a CT scan with me. No contrast, just in and out of the machine. I did the first one very late at night so I was trying not to be sick.  That scan was clear, but they then told me I had to come back for an MRI and ‘probably’ a lumbar puncture. (again, spoiler alert, no probably about it).

MRIs

I don’t like MRI’s.  They’re often a lot longer, a lot louder and a lot scarier than CT’s – I’ve been able to go to an outpatient facility for a CT before, during the pandemic.  For an MRI though, it wasn’t quite the same. I don’t know if it was because I was tired, or the meds I had after leaving the hospital, but this MRI is one I don’t remember.
MRI’s often require you to change into a hospital gown.  My GP lets me use my anxiety meds before going into one, but we think that because it was so early in the morning, I was just so tired and dopey from the night before that I just went with it.
MRI’s take longer than CT’s, usually.  My CT scan was eight minutes, from going in to coming out, and a few minutes of that was signing a form to say I wasn’t pregnant.  My MRI was, according to my other half, about an hour. They give you sort of ear plugs as MRI’s are loud, but because you’ve got to lie still, and they’re scanning your head, most of the claustrophobia is to do with the cage that goes around your head to keep you from moving.

Again, my MRI was clear.

Which meant I had to go for an LP, or Lumbar puncture.

Lumbar puncture – what does that have to do with the brain?

My lumbar puncture was a completely new experience for me. One I’d rather not repeat. Not only did I get to see the fricking needles they used,  I also discovered that my spine is not the best for LP’s.
So, let’s start with the basics.  A lumbar puncture slips a needle between your spinal disks, and through some dura and other matter to extract cerebrospinal fluid. It’s a good way to see if there’s blood in your spinal column that hasn’t been spotted on the CT/MRI, or if there’s a viral or bacterial infection that’s causing you trouble. It’s the gold standard test for a lot of disorders in your brain, like meningitis. And till I was 45, I had apparently avoided one.
Normally, it’s a relatively easy procedure.  You don’t need to be in the OR for it (though, can I say, just writing this, I’m feeling the same pressure and pain in my back from that experience.  Just an echo, but bleh), so they tried three times to get my LP in the day unit.
It didn’t work.
I don’t remember much of that other than searing pain and screaming at them to stop because they were hurting me.  They tried several times upstairs, then had to arrange for me to go to the OR to get it.
So, I was taken down to the operating theatre, and the woman there was confident she could get it. And she did, but it took another set of attempts.
Turns out my back isn’t as easy to get into as other people’s and my spine is either slightly ‘wrong’ (I was asked if I had scoliosis, I don’t), or the space that they can get through is so small/it’s such a narrow place around my nerves etc, so I had to keep telling them that I could feel it in my leg, my hip. 
That feeling ranged from a slight tingle like pins and needles, to feeling like someone was running needle rollers over the base of one foot, to feeling like I was being shocked.

Lumbar punctures are infamous for causing headaches, which is something you don’t want to hear when you already have one, so, I stayed flat for over an hour after.

I have  tattoo on my back, roughly where they went in.  Below is what my back looked like after. A day after this, my biohazard tattoo was basically one big bruise.

All in all, bar my spinal fluid pressure being a bit high (while taking it out, she said that), there wasn’t anything really bad in the findings.  Slightly anaemic (but I’d just had an iron treatment), and some other off tests that could be explained, but everything to do with what they can see in my brain is fine. Phew.

At the time, it wasn’t as much of a relief, because to be quite honest, if I’m going to have to go through tests like all of that, I’d prefer to have answers, but looking back on it now, it’s good that we were given the options to rule out stroke or aneurism, and now, I live with Status Migrainosus.