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My Journey – Part 8

After I got to the Pain Management clinic I met so many Dr.’s, nurses, assistants, that I can’t even begin to remember, but this is what they did for a living, very professional and nice. I felt that I was in good hands.

More tests and procedures than I even want to remember over the next few days. They gave me these heart medication pills that were for producing some sort of reaction to dull the pain… THAT didn’t work, just made my feel strange and freaky; (I assume it was some medication that thins your blood), I didn’t like that too much. The next procedure they tried was an epilepsy drug; which didn’t work either; THAT just made me feel even weirder than the other medication. But in the end NONE of it worked and I was back at square one. Now all this started with three days in San Francisco, and when I left there I was given some Heart pills and sent home to give that a try. After that I went back and told them the heart pills didn’t work. Got more tests and was given epilepsy medication, instructed how to take it, sent home to see how that worked… same result, just made me feel very strange and say really weird things to people, (which, I’m sure made them feel weird too). All this lasted around a year or so, I can’t remember, and about 5 visits to UCSF. I was beginning to feel like a “lab rat”.

When I went back the next time I saw Dr. Barbaro again and he asked to if any of the meds I was given at the Pain Management clinic had helped me. I told him that none of the meds had worked; other that making me feel VERY strange and then I asked him what the next step was as I was still having this mind numbing pain that was not getting any better. He said the next step was to implant what’s known as a “Deep Brain Stimulator” at the site of the stroke. This sounded very scary to me as I had never had surgery before in my entire life; along with sounding very major. I asked him what a Deep Brain Stimulator was? He pulled out these charts and showed me how the whole procedure was to go. What happens is, you are given an angiogram to map out the target, (stroke site), to get the target of where to place the electrodes. They then drill into your skull and place these electrodes at the site, connect them to a small battery which is then placed into your chest cavity. Then after it’s all healed they turn the electrodes on. This scared me even more. But I was ready. Even if it meant getting this done, the pain was controlling my life and I wanted it gone.

I was approximately 8 or 9 years post stroke and I was faced with continuing to have this pain control my life; or have this operation; I chose the opperation…

See you next post!

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