I wasn't able to post. We were in the hospital. I didn't think to have my husband post for me.

Here is what happened.

The next morning the Rheumy's office said to come in to get blood work done and the doc wanted a 4 vessel angiogram scheduled. I had no clue what this would involve, but we went in to do the blood and schedule anyway.

The angiogram is like the one's you would have for your heart, but it goes up into the neck to see if you have good blood flow.

Angiogram was scheduled for 2pm the next day.

We go. They take her back. Telling us it will take an hour.
1 1/2 hours goes by and we are getting a bit jumpy.
Finally a nurse comes out and tells us she had a seizure while they were doing the procedure and they wanted us to come back into the procedure room and that the radiologist needed to talk with us.

We go back. Everyone is running around. My daughter is awake, which is a shock. They usually have to knocked out. Versaid(sp) doesn't always knock my daughter completely out.

They still have the images up on the screen. I notice immediately that there is no blood flow to one side. DH tells me to just chill and see what the Radiologist has to say.

Radiologist comes in and tells us that It's bad. He says it's Very Very abnormal. He wants us to visit with Holly for a bit, then he will bring us back to talk.

Ok, we are standing there and there is a ton of people viewing the scan in the back.
Finally about 30 minutes later they take us back to look at the films with the radiologist.
He explains that she has a Carotid dissection. He shows us where her right side has blood flow. Shows us where the left doesn't, but the right side is helping to feed the left side.

He wants her doc there NOW. I explained that her doc was on vacation and had ordered the tests over the phone.
He said we need a doc now, preferrably a neuro.

I told them to call her seizure doc. They did, but he didn't feel comfortable with this. He would get a doc that would more help with this.

They tell us she cannot leave the hospital and will be moved to ICU.
(Ok, if we were scared before, we were petrified now)

I asked several times if she was going to die. The answer was always "The neuro will be waiting for you in ICU, he will talk with you"

She had to go back into the holding for outpatient procedures while they got her a bed in ICU. Everyone that came in would say "YOU are sooooo glad you had this procedure done"

We were scared to death. No one would explain further.
A lot of Tears and calls to family later and they finally let us back to ICU and the new Neuro.

The neuro was not as concerned about it as everyone else was. He was not as sure as everyone else was that this was a dissection.

2 days in ICU, then they moved her to the Seizure unit to monitor those.

Seizures turned out to be Non epileptic seizures(pseudo). So a psychiatrist was called in. She just said to reassure her that things would be back to normal soon and not to make a big deal about them. Suggested Holly go into a Day program for mentally handicapped adults.

Neuro did a MRI, which didn't show anything. Then he did a CT angiogram.
3 Radiologists looked at it. All said there was a dissection.

Doc said we would have to be in the hospital till Friday because she would need the blood thinner shots till then. Then he decided that if my husband and I would agree to learn to give the shots, we could go home on Wednesday. (YAY)

I was scared to death, but I learned to give her shots(in the stomach)

They never got the paper work done on Wed, so we finally got home Thursday around 6pm.

Home health is coming in to do her protime and report that to the doc's so we can get her coumidin levels where they need to be.

She will be on blood thinners for 6 months. She goes back to the neuro in 1 month for a doppler of her neck. At 6 months, they will do another CT angiogram to check it again.

At first I was frustrated with the non epileptic seizures, but suddenly realized that if it hadn't been for the seizures, no one would have had a reason to do the angiogram.

The seizures could have very well saved her life.

After we get the coumidin levels right, then the neuro said the Rheumy could restart the methotrexate.

She is not allowed to Jump, run, fall, flip, bump, ride a 4 wheeler, for 6 months.

I don't know much about dissections. All I know is what the doc told us in the hospital. I never left the hospital so I couldn't look it up.
I don't know about complications or anything. Just that they don't want a blood clot to form because the only place for it to go is the brain and that would mean stroke.

I will research and read more once I feel I have decompressed.
A week seems like forever when you are at the hospital.

Sorry this is so long. lol It was a long week.


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