Hummy is very sweet, which is maybe why she can't have sugar Epiphany time! Hummy is sugar, so she can't have it because it would be auto-cannibalism, basically

The LP went fine. I had a lovely nurse and I didn't feel a thing, gotta love that local anesthetic! The worst part of the day was the journey up there as the driver was heavy on the clutch and each gear change made my stomach lurch. I could tell before we'd even got out of town that I was going to get car sick, and yeah, by the time we got to Sheffield I was feeling very sick. If he'd picked me up 10 minutes later I'd have been able to eat more of my bowl of granola, but he got there on time (which he'd not even expected himself) so I wasn't able to finish it all. A full stomach helps to offset motion sickness for me, I've found.

I did get politely tortured at the hospital. After the LP I had to lie down for half an hour, ordered not to sit up. This is the first line of defense against getting a pressure headache. This can happen because the vessels in your brain collapse a bit after the puncture, even though the removed fluid has replaced itself within an hour. This half hour lying prone is an absolute must, if you sit up straight away you're pretty much guaranteed to get the headache, which can be bad enough that you need to go back to hospital to get it treated.

So the nurse checked her watch and told me not to sit up before 10 past, then went to get me some lunch. She brought me a sandwich and a mug of tea, and I had to lie and look at them for 20 minutes because I wasn't allowed to sit up The tea was luke warm by the time I got to drink it. ><

Another thing I then had to do, was have lots of caffeine for the next 5 days. As caffeine causes those vessels in the brain to expand, so they tell you to have loads in further hopes of warding off this headache. She said if you usually have 4 or 5 cups of tea a day, you need to drink between 8 and 10. I managed 8 on the first day. The next day I had the bright idea of making half mugs, as quantity of fluid wasn't what was needed here, and I was trying to minimise the amount of time I spent peeing! But I still only managed to drink 7 on each of the other 4 days. I just didn't want any more drinks. The 2nd day I didn't get to sleep until 6 o'clock in the morning...

The nurse said some of the results they'd have that day, other would take several weeks. I'll not see them anyway, they'll go to the consultant. All I know know is that the fluid pressure in my skull/spine is perfectly normal. Which is nice, especially as if it had been above the normal range (which is between 10 and 20, mine is 14) I'd not have been allowed to go home. D:

She sprayed this unbelievably cold stuff on my back, which covered it in this weird plasticky film, then stuck a dressing over that, and I couldn't lie in the bath for 4 days, or swim or anything. No soaking it, basically. The dressing fell off on the second day anyway >< But I stuck a big plaster in its place. Bending/moving felt foul at first. Didn't know if the discomfort was the dressing, the plasticky stuff or the hole in my back pulling, or all three >< Felt horrible/painful whichever it was.

There's a bit of residual pain there still. Jusy occasionally when I sit down and my back pressed against the sofa cushion there's a moment of ow there, so there's still a bit of healing going on. But it was a textbook procedure really, no issues at any stage. I just hope it provides some useful info for the neurologist.