December 13th, 2024
When I was 19 I woke up one morning with the worst headache I’ve ever had, my whole body hurt and I could not get out of bed, I woke up just enough to call out to work, fell back asleep and woke up twice more to drink a sip of water and pass back out. Around 11pm that night, I woke up enough to realize something was REALLY wrong, so I literally crawled down the hall to my roommate’s office, fell in the door, and said I think I need to go to the ER. I don’t remember getting in the car or arriving in the ER, I just remember waking up again in a weird room with a lady telling me I had meningitis and that it was potentially fatal. They needed to do a spinal tap right away, the doctor nurse person lady with wild hair and hideous bedside manner also said that they could NOT offer numbing or anesthesia for this procedure, but that it would be quick. She then unpacked a cartoon-sized syringe and I swear to this day, the needle was 10 inches long. For the next 20 minutes, wild hair nurse doctor lady tried and failed to remove the required fluid from my spinal column while I screamed so loud that the drunk in the next bay noped the fuck on out of there in fright. I never found out what happened to him. That midnight in the ER at 19 was, and still remains to this day, the single most physically painful experience of my life, inclusive of my eleventy-billion tattoos and 100% unmedicated childbirth.
All of this is to say, that I have had ONE spinal tap, and I really really really wish hope pray, and magicks that I will never have another one. Yet, my daughter, a tiny thing even now, barely topping the hospital scale at 54 kilos with shoes and hoodie still attached, has had more spinal taps in the past 2 years than I can count. I’ve tried, there were 2, or was it 3 that first week, then 1 every 28 days, praying the results would tell us what we needed to hear. Then the one that would tell us if we had really really good news or really terrifying news that would mean leaving our home and jobs and life for months on end to continue to fight in a hospital far far away. Then (with blessedly the right answer, the maybe the great everything that is all that is, might be looking upon us with kindness), then we got to only have one every 3 months.
And then there is today. Tomorrow might be a pile of shit, my country will probably destroy our access to healthcare for this preexisting condition, but today, TODAY Luella Ivy Fisher, had her last lumber puncture, the last ever in her long and glorious life, may the old gods and the new bless it so.
Leigh Fisher 