ER and Hospital Stay

When I arrived at the hospital I had a high fever, had a full on migraine with intolerance to light, body pain, word finding difficulty, slurred speech, right sided weakness, positive babinski (very bad), positive signs for meningitis (can't remember the sign name), tremors, and short-term memory loss. Being an RN, my fear was a stroke with a sudden onset of headache and speech change. A lumbar puncture was done, CT and MRI of the head. Stroke was ruled out. Bacterial Meningitis would take a few days to rule out and Viral meningitis would be ruled out by ruling out everything else (basically). The ER doctor started me on two antibiotics immediately and admitted me. It felt like day after day I sat in the hospital with no answers. I asked for a neurological consult on the second full day. The hospitalist seemed appalled that I would even ask for such a thing. Justin and I had not notified any of my family because we did not have any answers and we did not want to scare anyone. He did contact my sister Traci and she came up. When she came in the room and was with me for a while, she realized that I had several symptoms that were similar to a problem that my older sister Dondi has called Chiari Malformation and Occult Tethered Cord Syndrome. We discussed this with my AWESOME nurses. They printed up a symptom list. I was not around my sister when she was sick, as I was in nursing school at the time and living 3 hours away at the time. I went back and fourth on whether I thought I had the condition or not, at first. Now, I am absolutely sure that I have it! Although I have no official diagnosis. When the only local neurologist (that is accepting new patients) came into my room, the first thing that he said to me is "Is this Dr Carter?" I was so sick that I was not even able to kick him out of my room. Then he saw the papers on my bed that the nurse had printed for me with the signs and symptoms of Chiari Malformation. He said, "Do you have that?" I said, "I don't know, but I do have all of the symptoms". He picked it up and threw it to the side and said, "Get rid of that!". What a jerk. He said that he personally looked at my MRI and my cerebellar tonsils were not herniated. However, he did order another MRI of the head. What do you know? When I picked up my records, the report showed, "Low-lying cerebellar tonsils". That is the definition for Chiari Malformation. I stayed in the hospital for 5 days, was treated horribly, pretty much told by two Dr's in different ways that it was in my head. Left with no diagnosis. When I followed up with my Primary Care Dr, he advised me that I had Viral Meningitis. The PCP did not want to prescribe anything for my speech, tremors, or migraines so that he did not mask any of the symptoms prior to seeing the neurologist. It took me over a month to get into a neurologist. Unfortunately, I had to suffer intolerable migraines and tremors for that entire time with minimal vicodine. Mind you, my brain is being pulled down into my spinal column due to my spinal cord being too tight. And, when I turn my head from side to side, my brain is hitting the side of my skull!!!!