The Head Injury

Thursday started out a normal day. I woke up and hopped in the shower. Towards the end of my shower, my foot slipped and my head slammed into the wall. To my knowledge, I didn’t lose consciousness and I definitely didn’t fall over, but that, unfortunately, is because my head caught my fall. I quickly finished up my shower and then sat down on the bed. My head was pounding and the left side, which hit the wall, was starting to form a bump.

When the average human bumps their head they need to watch for signs of a concussion. I am not the “average” human. Anytime I hit my head I have been instructed by my hematologist to get it looked at. It is far too easy with ITP to develop a brain bleed. Granted, this is generally only a concern when your platelets are dangerously low, which mine aren’t, but I spoke with my mother and her and my husband agreed it wasn’t worth risking it. My husband said he’d rather take me to the Emergency Room and find out nothing is wrong than have something happen and find out later that there were things he could have done to prevent it.

There were a few strange side effects that caused his concern to grow exponentially. For one, when I tried to stand up to get dressed, my legs were shaking so much that I wasn’t able to steady myself enough to take a step. Luckily the second time I stood up to try I was able to move. Another thing that was cause for concern – I ate a bowl of the cereal I eat every morning and it tasted strange. It didn’t really taste like anything. Just crunchy.

When we got to the ER I saw a nurse in triage who handed me a green laminated piece of paper reading “FASTTRACK”.  I was sent down a hallway and told to follow the Fast Track signs. When I arrived at the Fast Track room, the nurse immediately handed me a cup and asked for a urine sample. Within five minutes of providing the sample a nurse walked me over to radiology and told to sit and wait outside the CT room. A couple of minutes later, the door opened and two technicians brought me in to the CT machine. I laid down on the table and one of the technicians adjusted it to the right height before heading into the control room with the other gentleman. They took multiple scans of my head over the next ten minutes and then sent me back to the Fast Track waiting room, which is where my husband had been waiting for me. I was told to remain in the waiting room until a radiologist could look over my scans.

About a half hour later, the nurse that had walked me over to radiology returned with discharge papers. She said my scans looked great – no intracranial bleeding!  On the discharge papers were symptoms/signs to look out for. She said I needed to be watched over the next 24-48 hours and if any of the symptoms should appear, I was instructed to return to the ER.

Luckily, I’ve hit the 48 hour mark and no overwhelmingly strange symptoms have occurred. I did have a weird tingling in my hands for about five minutes on Friday and some carrots I ate earlier tasted like sweet potatoes, but I think I’m just being paranoid. Crisis averted!