All in all, I was in the hospital for six days. My husband and my girls helped me walk, eat, and bathe. For the first couple of days, I needed help walking because my balance was off. The recovery process was slow and steady. "After months of frustration, I felt so relieved to finally know what was going on with me." Nearly six hours later, I woke up in a recovery room with a nurse and my husband and daughters by my side. Then, they used the drain to inject a dye so that they could identify exactly where the leak was coming from and make sure any and all leaks were sealed using tissue from my nose. Once I was under, the surgical team prepped me by starting IVs, inserting a lumbar drain into my mid-lower back, and putting a line into my left wrist to monitor my heart rate and pulse. I remember being wheeled into the operating room, seeing the anesthesiologist hovering above me, and praying. I had endonasal surgery, where a camera with a thin lens gets inserted through the nostril, along with surgical tools to repair the leak.
I tried my best to downplay it for them and have faith that I’d be okay. My daughters were afraid I was going to die, and my husband was nervous, too. I remember so clearly because it was the day after my birthday. I had a spontaneous leak with no clear cause.Ī few weeks later, on December 20, 2019, I had surgery. But apparently none of those things had happened to me. Typically, CSF leaks are caused by some type of head trauma, surgery, or a rise in pressure around your brain. Within two weeks of my diagnosis, I had CT scans and MRIs done so that doctors could look at the flow of my brain fluid in order to reveal the location of the leak. After months of frustration, I felt so relieved to finally know what was going on with me. It came back positive: I did, in fact, have a CSF leak. When I told my doctor I thought I might have a CSF leak, she agreed and sent me to the lab to have my drainage tested for beta-2 transferrin, a protein found almost exclusively in cerebrospinal fluid. The first week of November, I went back to my doctor so that I could stress that this was *no* sinus infection.Īfter a month of dealing with these symptoms, I knew I needed to bring the information I found and discuss my symptoms at length, considering I still hadn't found relief.
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