Introduction and story

[Britosborn]

My name is Brittany I have an almost 4 year old son. And live with his father who I have been with for over five years.

My story starts in the year 2000 I was ten at the time of the car accident which left me in the hospital for 9 months I had a spinal fluid leak and a broken neck. Fractures in my face which they thought had healed.

When I got out of the hospital everything mostly went back to normal I was never allowed to play sports and I had stipulations in gym class I did not attend gym class until high school and only because it was required. I had an iep and didn’t attend normal math class until the 9th grade when I finally caught back up to my peers.

Everything was normal until November of 2017 when I woke up at 4 am with the strangest worst headache I’ve ever had in my life. I chocked it up to the fact that I drank the night before and this was just from that so I took excedrine and went back to bed. When I woke back up around 8 or 9 am I felt the same but worse I could hardly walk to the bathroom my head hurt so bad so my boyfriend got me Tylenol and I laid back down until I had to get up to change my sons diaper and get him a drink. I texted my boyfriends mom I was positive I needed to go to the hospital but I didn’t have a license nor could I just take my son with me to the er without some sort of help. She explained she was a work and that my boyfriend would be home soon to take me to the hospital so I laid down on the couch waiting on my boyfriend. What happened after that I have no memory of for two weeks. From what I’ve been told when I stopped answering my texts and phone calls my boyfriends mom left work to come to me and when she got there my son let her in. Apparently I sat up she said my eyes where huge and I just looked at her I didn’t know who she was. She called an ambulance they were convinced I did drugs and overdosed they even counted all my prescriptions to make sure I hadn’t overdosed on those. So my son was given to my neighbor and I was taken to the hospital. My boyfriend went straight there when he heard so basically I was trashing around and going crazy it took several people to hold me down I pulled my picc line out all kinds of craziness. I was then put into induced coma for 13 days they kept trying to take me out of it but I couldn’t breathe on my own I was on so many medications. I remember seeing the dr and he asked told me I was in an accident which I’ve been so scared of car accidents I thought he meant that was what happened. He also asked me about my scars which he thought were scratches saying how’d I get the scratches on my head. I remember at one point sitting up and seeing my boyfriend sitting there he smiled at me but that’s all I remember. I had a strong dream during this coma I was absolutely convinced I escaped the hospital and went to my grandmas house who was in my dream divorced and somehow became a dr. This dream goes on and turns traumatic from there. So the dr woke me up again and asked me if I knew where I was which I did then I told him my escape story and he looked at me and said yea that never happened. I dont know how much later but I woke up completely I saw my aunt and I had a tube down my throat which I wanted to talk to my aunt so I held up my finger telling her to hold on a moment and i dont know how much time went by but she was gone and I have no memory of pulling my tube out but was told I did.

From there I had a terrible hallucination about the nurse putting iPads all over my room and pretty much making fun of me which was traumatizing. It went on for hours and hours every time I woke up the room looked different. So finally I was moved to a room out of the icu and I was fine until I fell asleep and woke back up and ipads were in my room again so I was just so tired I kept trying to reach it to put it down and never could so I put my pillow up to cover it and fell back asleep of course when I woke up no iPad was there.

So then I was sent to rehab center for a week and went home after with iv antibiotics which I was on at home for about a month.

I’m now in pill antibiotics and trying daily to get back to where I was but I don’t think it’s possible.

My hearing has decreased and I have permanent numbness in one hip.

I will be going to ent to discuss fixing my fracture in a few weeks as well as discussing my hearing but I’m pretty sure hearing cannot get better once it’s already declined. I have headaches almost everyday and get easily frustrated.

That’s all I have to say for right now

[sdjohnson231]

Hello! It sounds as if you are very fortunate to be here with us today! You've been through a very traumatic illness, and come through it alive. You went through the hallucinations that many of us have while hospitalized. I felt sure I'd met the devil himself. Something you don't forget! Please do go see an ENT as soon as you can. Help may certainly be available for your diminished hearing. What fracture did you receive? And why hasn't it been addressed yet? You should also probably see a neurologist about the ongoing numbness you are experiencing, as well as the headaches. Most of us "survivors" do continue to have side effects, most often headaches. Keep posting on this site and ask for guidance. You'll find someone here who has been through just about everything you've been through. Wishing you the best of luck as you continue in your "new normal" life! Susan

[Britosborn in reply to sdjohnson231]

I had a fracture in my face from a childhood illness that’s how my spinal fluid leaked through reaching my brain causing the macterial meningitis and sepsis. The ent is fixing the fracture after my sinuses are clear. I have to go get a cat scan to look at my sinuses

Thank you