When it rains it pours and when it comes to Natalie’s unfortunate misadventures, this statement is all too close to home. I recently wrote about Natalie’s Very Bad Day after she was recently stopped by the Kohler police for “running a yield sign”. At the time, I had no idea that her streak of bad luck would invariably continue throughout the month.
Two weeks ago Natalie had a few friends at our house and she unfortunately fell and hit her head. I just got home from work that evening to witness the fall and it was not a pretty sight. I checked her out at the time and she seemed no worse for the wear. She DOES have a very hard head after all.
On Sunday morning she got very ill and was bedridden for most of the day. We decided to stay the course for one more day and she had to leave work 20 minutes after arriving on Monday morning. That evening I could tell that things were not improving as she was sick all day with a bad headache, vertigo, and an upset stomach. We decided that the best course of action was to take her into urgent care and make sure that she hadn’t sustained any serious damage. Fortunately, she had no visible acute trauma on her CT scans, but it was clear that she was enduring a very bad concussion.
The best way to deal with a concussion is to rest the brain and not do anything that causes overstimulation. Basically, she needed to cut back on her daily routine and take it easy especially if her symptoms were exacerbated at all. No driving and no exercise classes were allowed. If any of you know Natalie, you realize that following through with this regimen would be extremely challenging for her. And in the words of one of Natalie’s best friends who confided in me how difficult my job with Natalie now becomes stating that “this will be like trying to tame a stallion”. As it turns out the treatment is to try doing small tasks and just see how you feel. If things start to “fog up” you stop and rest. In the end, this really seemed to work for her.
Natalie also had benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) which is one of the most common causes of vertigo and isn’t uncommon in people that have sustained a head injury. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo causes brief episodes of mild to intense dizziness, but it’s usually easily treated and her frequent trips to her physical therapist in Manitowoc were an absolute godsend! She was well on her way to recovery once they were able to correct her vertigo with a simple maneuver. I’ll spare you the details, but coming from a medical background, I realize I find this a little more fascinating than most.
It was also unfortunate that this occurred during her birthday which was not celebrated to its normal full potential and also happened right before we had a planned week-long getaway to some friend’s house in the northern part of Wisconsin. We were hoping to spend some time on the lake, swimming and using the Jet skis, but obviously that couldn’t happen given her current physical state.
Natalie continues to improve every day and is now back to work for half days through the rest of this week. Hopefully, she will be back full-time starting next week and life will be back to the crazy normalcy we are all used to living.
