So, it happened. I had my lumbar area punctured. With a needle.

I was thankfully VERY distracted this morning and thus had minimal time to fret about it, but the ten minutes leading up to the appointment were nerve-wracking. My mom was there and Slappy (who deserves a big round of applause for a) coming home last night when he really should’ve slept at the hospital, just so he could cuddle me (because I was a mess); b) for getting out of clinic early and driving 70 miles for my LP), made it just in time.

I was called back and the whole charade began. The best proof I have of just how nervous I was was that my heart rate was 96, which is a leetle bit high considering that my resting heart rate hovers at or below 60. So yea. Scared, I was (apparently, I’m channeling Yoda today).

The nurse practitioner poked (with her fingers) to find the spot they wanted to use and then marked it with a pen and injected me with lidocaine to make sure the surface was good and numb.

And then it began.

It hurt. Not a ton, but dude, it was not comfortable. But my neurologist seemed to know what she was doing and I was not concerned. Until she said, “well, that won’t work.”

Internets, those are NEVER the words you want to hear from a doctor with a needle in your spine. Just, no.

Try number two yielded the same result.

After the second try, they repositioned me so my spine was more curled, which was fine, because the fetal position was pretty much the best position I could’ve ever thought of at that point.

On try 3 we discovered that the lidocaine had worn off (Internets, you NEVER want to learn that the lidocaine has worn off via big fucking needle in back, just FYI), so we added more lidocaine and continued.

And failed.

Once more, with perseverance, she stabbed. Once more, she hit bone. Or so she thinks (I’ll explain this in a sec).

Evidently the 5th stick was the charm, but there’s a possibility she got it on the 4th. Because I don’t have high pressure, I have LOW pressure.

So low that almost nothing came out. So low that they had to get me to do all kinds of things to get my pressure to actually read on the gauge and then, it only registered an 8 and eeked out 9 after much work. I’m getting a wide range of information on what is normal (I think my doctor said 10-20 is normal, but I was a little out of it), but the most scholarly article I could find said that 60 is normal, and I had 8. An 8 (an 8 that required a lot of work to get to even register and not be a dry tap). And moreover, being anxious has actually been shown to increase the opening pressure on an LP, so dude. An 8 is noteworthy.

An 8 is amazing. AMAZING. No, I don’t have pseudo-tumor cerebri (thankfully). No, we don’t know what’s wrong.

But internet, we have a reason.

We have a reason about why my head hurts.

We have a start. We have HOPE.

The next step is to wait for lab tests on my CSF and then in November, have *another* lumbar puncture, but this time they’re going to inject radioactive material and then scan me. The point of this is to find out where I’m leaking spinal fluid, which is the running theory supported by the low pressure diagnosis.

As for what happens after that, the answer is I really just don’t know. Possibly more brain surgery if it’s a significant hole in my duraplasty, possibly a blood patch if it’s less significant. But that’s putting the cart about 6 miles in front of the horse.

For now, we’re focusing on my back being in amazing levels of pain, taking it crazy kinds of easy to make sure that I don’t start leaking CSF from my LP site and, of course, celebrating.

Because validation that I’m not crazy, that something is actually wrong, and more importantly, possibly TREATABLE, is absolutely worth the cost of 5 big ass stabs to my back.

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