10/19/2011

Welcome To The Wonderful World Of Concussion

I said hello to The Wonderful World Of Concussion yesterday afternoon, spending an evening in the ER.

When I slipped on the wet floor ("Incontinent Dog" will be the name of my next rock band*), I at first thought I'd only landed on my butt, which hurt a lot. But my head felt like it should be puffy and swollen on the left side, only it wasn't; but it felt like it was. And the lights seemed bright, a lot brighter than normal. And my thinking was foggy and slow.

All that (wrong signals from the nervous system, overly bright lights, half-speed thinking) made me think (slowly) that I might have hit my head in the fall too. But I didn't remember hitting my head, which was yet another reason to worry.

So I had one of our housemates drive me over to the Mayo Hospital ER. (We have another hospital and ER less than a mile from our house, but my primary doctor is with Mayo, plus Mayo's ER has a lot less traffic and can usually get you in and out in a few hours, whereas the closer hospital usually has a minimum wait time of about eight hours. The ten-mile difference is worth it.)

While waiting for examination and a cat scan, it was interesting to see how my mind was working. Idle thoughts, "daydreaming", were much more like actual night dreams, going off in odd little unexpected directions. The name "Esme Savage" popped into my mind at one point, for absolutely unknown reasons; it'd be a good character name for a story, though, so I might use it someday.

Cat scan came out okay, so I got diagnosed with a mild concussion and basically told to take it easy for a few days. Called off from work, slept quite a bit last night. Doing better today.

*(I'm growing increasingly frustrated by our dog's bladder problems, which have been going on for months and have had only temporary abatements with antibiotics and other medications. The latest round of antibiotics seemed to be helping again, but in the last few days... twice more just today. I'm about ready to scream. At the veterinarian, not the dog.)