A Rude Awakening...

I have no memory of it, but at 7 a.m. the next morning, I fell in the bathroom and hit my head. Jimmy discovered me unconscious on the floor with blood coming out of my mouth. He put me in a recovery position and called an ambulance. I was taken to Leiden University Medical Center, where a CT scan confirmed that I had fractured my skull and had a concussion and cerebral hemorrhage. Sounds horrible, but I didn’t need surgery, which was a relief; I had two further scans to confirm that the bleeding didn’t spread. An x-ray confirmed that I had also fractured my ankle.  

Unfortunately, I spiked a fever which caused concerns that I might have meningitis. The spinal tap for the culture hurt like hell. It took five days for the results, so in the meantime they treated me with high doses of antibiotics just in case I did in fact have meningitis. Not much fun as the drugs made me quite sick and the IV disconnected once so I woke up covered in blood. Every day neurologists visited me and asked me my name, where I was and the date; every day I asked them when I could stop with the horrible drugs and when I would be cleared to fly.

Spending eight nights in the hospital wasn’t a lot of fun, but I was really impressed with the staff as everyone was really nice. Jimmy visited me daily and did a great job running the house. I was disappointed not to be home when Veronica returned from the UK and was thrilled when Jimmy brought her and Ashlynn to visit me. I also missed dinner at Carlin’s where this cute photo was taken, and wasn’t allowed to go see Coldplay the following week because of all the noise and flashing lights. Luckily I was cleared to fly and the neurologists thought that hiking would actually be good for my brain; just needed to give my ankle a good rest so it could make the trip.