Starting on January 12th this year, I felt as if I had a bad case of
the flu, tried to continue working through it, but the fl wasnt
progressing as it should have done (as I say 'DUH!' looking back at
the situation). Over the next two weeks I spent more time at home
than I did in the office. I went to a walk-in clinic and was diagnosed
as having an inflamed disc. I was given prescriptions for Percocet,
and Diclofenac (pain killer and anti-inflammatory). This was a wicked
combination which ended up knocking me out for hours at a time. By
friday the 30th, I had pretty much lost all feeling in my legs, except
for the 'wonderful' burning sensation in my legs, was having really
bad problems walking, and was having real problems trying to go to the
bathroom.
That afternoon, when I woke up from the meds, I found that I had
leaked while I slept, and tries to make it to the bathroom. Well, I
made it to the bathroom door, but that was it, my legs gave out, lost
what bladder control I had left (I thought) and ended up falling down,
panicking, and crying for about half an hour. When I got control of
myself (mentally at least) I cleaned up, and tried to get hold of my
(then)-girlfriend. I ended up waiting around for about 4 or 5 hours
till she got home, then called for an ambulance to go to the local
hospital.
By 8:30 friday evening I was in the hospital, still scared, with a
bladder that felt like it was about to burst. After dealing with all
the paperwork I got to start dealing with the med student, he was
quite interested in my case, then something scary happened. He went
out and got his supervisor (a full doctor) and sounded quite excited
while he described my symptoms, and his tentative diagnosis. The
supervisor agreed and off I went for a wonderful test.
The myelogram was my first realization of how hopeless I felt at this
point. After they had done the spinal tap, and inserted the dye into
my spine, they started taking the shots, when they started titlting
the table, I was okay until they tilted me feet-down. When I realized
that I couldnt stand on my feet, I had my second panic attack in one
day (and in my life) eventually they realized that I had a serious
problem and had one of the techs (really cute one :) come out and
support me.
After this I went back to the ER, and spoke to a Neurosurgury intern,
he hada quick look at my films, realized it wasnt a problem in his
field, and said I could go home! The ER nurse finally calmed me down
(man this was a bad day for me). At this point they cathetered me,
and recovered an amazing (as I found out later) 1200cc, apparently I
hadnt lost total bladder control, just some overflow. Around this
point I fell asleep, still in ER, still not knowing what had happened
to me.
--- To reply, remove the character that doesnt belong in ~sprint