As some of you (all of you?) know, I decided back in November to write a book about my experiences with the miscarriage, the hospitalization, the IIH, vision loss and recovery, etc. I have spurts of working on it, and today was one of those big working days. I wrote an entire chapter. It's a very rough draft, but I feel it needs to be reviewed and revised. Much of the other stuff I've written is still a little too raw emotionally for me to polish up enough to share, but this one needs reviewers. The organization probably needs some work, and I'd like some honest comments and criticism about the writing. I'm looking for volunteers. I know some of it may not make a lot of sense out of context, and it's definitely a middle chapter, but it should still stand alone pretty well.
Please email me if you would be interested in reading it or if you know of someone who might be interested in reading it.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Three Doctors a Day Keeps Nothing away
Nothing really exciting today, just a long update on "my condition." As some of you know, I felt great in the first two weeks of the month and stopped taking my iron supplements for my anemia and started exercising. Then I started feeling crummier and crummier last week. I was in pain (had to take vicodin for the first time since way back in October) and my vision was messed up and I was crying constantly, at the drop of a hat, worried about anything and everything.
I've been doing research online (always a double-edged sword) and joined an online support group for people with my condition (known by various names, including benign intracranial hypertension [BIH], pseudotumor cerebri [PTC], or idiopathic intracranial hypertension [IIH]). The time was particularly challenging emotionally because the greatest of the pain hit me on the weekend, when, of course, I knew it would be pointless to call my docs. So, some of you got to read lovely emotional emails from me, and some of you got to hear me nearly bawl on the phone, and some of you were spared it all together. Below is the medical summary of today, a very exhausting day. (By the way, you are included in the "contacts" I mention below. If you have any ideas or suggestions, as always, as in the summer, I'd love to hear them, and I thank you all for all that you do to make this world a better place for me and others.):
Well, today was a mixed bag of information. I still hadn’t heard from Dr. Hilburn (the neurologist) or his acting nurse about my concerns, even though I called early Monday morning, so I called this morning before 9 and left another message for her, asking for a call.
Then we were off to Indianapolis for my visit with Dr. Rieser, who hadn’t been kept updated on any of the recent activity in my life. So my visit with him was me bringing him up to speed on our conception and everything since then. He said he has “a couple” other patients with IIH, so he knows something of the disease, but he’s not up to date on everything about it. He thinks it’s great I’m doing my research and staying informed. He thinks the iron-deficiency anemia could be related, but he’s not sure about causality with the recent headaches. He said the iron count of 13 (what Mike remembers my iron count being last time it was taken at St. Vincent’s in October) is good and that he doesn’t think me taking supplements will make me overdose and produce too much, but it is possible that I was a little low when I started getting the headache flare-ups not long after my period AND starting the exercise again. He thinks the exercise may be the culprit. He suggested a book (Eating for Life) to me by an exercise physiologist, saying he’s had several patients (with IIH?) have good luck with it, losing weight this way. He suggests I “bag the exercise for now,” particularly the strenuous stuff, and try to lose weight through controlling food alone right now. Then maybe I can add exercise in later.
My overall impression is that, as always, Dr. Rieser is great. He said several times that I am really the best person to know what’s unusual for me and what’s not and to tell them (the doctor’s) what I think is going on. Of course, it’s their job to interpret, but he DOES listen AND consider, rather than just tossing everything out. He tells me WHY he thinks an idea doesn’t hold up or why it does, for that matter. So, maybe I’ll keep him as my primary care physician, after all, even though he is so far away.
I really don’t like the idea of not exercising. I think the exercising is what was really helping me lose weight, but I could be wrong. I do respect Dr. Rieser and his opinions, so I’ll give it a shot, after all. He said that he thought with the exercise, I was “setting myself up for a big fat failure,” in exercising, then having pain and not exercising because of the pain, etc. , even though weight is often an issue with the patients with IIH and they need to lose weight. That’s why he recommends this way of eating to most of them. He also asked what the other docs had said about conceiving and asked if I knew about the dangers of the other drugs I’m on in pregnancy. I said yes and explained that Dr. Hilburn had said that conception was okay and that, of course, the biggest concern would be for my health. And I told Dr. Rieser that I, of course, am scared of getting pregnant, primarily for my vision, though I do still want to have a baby. I teared up, and looked down and started writing, so Dr. Rieser filled in the gap by answering that he did think it was a good idea to wait 9 months to a year to get this IIH stabilized before we started thinking about conceiving. According to him, we’re “still young and healthy,” so that’s not a concern. I told him about my quest to find out more about women who’ve had pregnancies with IIH, especially after having the vision issues I’ve had, and he again said he thinks it’s great I’m keeping up on everything and that I can call anytime I have questions; if he can help, he will.
The visit with Dr. Lee was a little more mixed. There is no fluid on my optic nerves, so any vision issues I’ve had are not cause for more concern YET. My vision in my left eye is still 20/20, in my right eye, still 20/40. On this visit, I was given a color test, which I haven’t been given before. I got to try to pick out numbers formed from clusters of circles of various shades of one or two colors set against circles of other colors. I got 5/14 on my right eye and 14/14 in my left, although that was still a challenge. He says there is some pallor in my right optic disc, which we knew. That’s leftover from the optic nerve basically being oxygen deprived when the pressure cut off so much of the circulation to my eyes. That’s the eye, of course, that has far more problems than the other, visually.
Dr. Lee is concerned that my neurologist has said he doesn’t need to see me any longer unless I feel I need to be seen. He (Dr. Lee) thinks the neurologist should see me at least twice a year, to keep an eye on my progress, because the optic nerve sheath fenestration has “not great permanent results,” so we really have to keep an eye on my condition. He said he would far rather see me come in 10 times a month out of paranoia than not come in that one time that it really mattered. It’s funny, at first, Dr. Lee seemed really hard to get information out of, a little brusque, but now he seems to open up more and more every time we see him.
I had heard and read, of course, about ONSF “failing” but had not managed to find information, so we asked him about the rate, and he said that he would estimate it at greater than 50%. He said it’s basically a band-aid. Really, the point is to try to control pressure with medicines, weight loss, maybe even shunting (though that has its own failure rates in some patients), and that’s why the condition needs to be monitored, especially the cranial pressure. Anyway, when the ONSF “fails,” what happens is that the hole “plugs” back up when the pressure in the head goes back down, and then, if the pressure rises again, the hole has resealed with scar tissue and so there is no longer anywhere for the pressure to vent again, so you therefore have the need for a repeated procedure or for shunts.
Of course, I’ve been kicking around the idea for a while that Dr. Hilburn is a nice guy but just doesn’t seem to know much about IIH and isn’t the best doctor to manage my care for this, so when Dr. Lee again expressed his concern about this lack of observation, I asked Dr. Lee if, based on his experience of doing ONSF procedures, he knew of any neurologists he could refer me to. He said absolutely. I said of course, the problem is that I’m self-pay. Well, that made things a lot more difficult. Because we don’t live in Marion County, we can’t go to Wishart, which is always the first response. So he’s down to ONE person he can refer me to. One. She has a private practice but volunteers some of her time at IU Med School. He thinks she might be able to take me on there, but it might be a long wait before she can get me in. He dictated a letter to her while we were there, asking her if she could take us on, and then told me to give her a call in a week or two. This doctor is a neuro-ophthalmologist, so she can monitor both the IIH and the vision issues. That’s fantastic. When he mentioned that, it reminded me of information I’d found a few days ago about a neuro-opthalmologist up in Lafayette, Scott Sanders. He’s heard of Dr. Sanders, but only by name. He doesn’t know about his reputation at all. Neither do I, unfortunately…I can’t find anything on the man’s reputation.
Dr. Lee is concerned that, of course, we will have a harder time finding quality care for me because I am a self-pay patient, as we see with the immediate reduction in the number of specialists willing to see me). He told us that he recommend I get health insurance. (Gee, thanks, Doc, we hadn’t already thought of that!) It’s a very expensive disorder I have, and it’s going to cost a lot to monitor. He suggested Medicaid; I make too much money, I explained. He said apply, reapply, and reapply again. (I will, but I don’t think it will do any good.) He suggested getting individual insurance; I already tried and weighed too much, and now I have a preexisting condition, I explained. Mike said basically, our only hope is for him to get a job that would provide insurance to me despite my preexisting condition. Dr. Lee said something like, “There ya go,” or “Do what you have to,” and I responded that Mike has been unemployed and looking for a job for nearly a year now, it’s not so easy.
One last thing, Dr. Lee said, we might consider, is disability. We MIGHT be able to get it for blindness based on my visual field limitation in my right eye. But, he said, if I ever want to drive, I couldn’t do it, because to get disability based on blindness assumes permanent blindness so I would never be able to get a driver’s license, and if I ever tried to reapply for one, the government would come looking at my history and why I was suddenly “not blind” anymore. I also pointed out that if I’m getting disability payments, I can’t earn much money. He said it might be worth it to “be healthy.” I replied that it wouldn’t be worth it if we couldn’t afford to pay for food, clothing, or shelter, so our overall health would suffer. (Besides, I’m not so sure that a lot of people on disability have access to better care than I would, just because they have more options available.) Mike and I are still pretty sure that, despite the high cost of everything, given all our options, we’re still better off with me working as much as possible and remaining uninsured (though TRYING to find insurance) and paying for things out of pocket, making payments as/if necessary than any of the other options so far presented.
I’m still researching, using my contacts, the support group, every connection I can think of. I’m crossing my fingers. Dr. Lee even went so far as to suggest that perhaps everything I experienced was just a perfect storm with the hormone fluctuations from the miscarriage, my weight, etc., and that maybe now my body is back in its normal place and isn’t making excess CSF any longer and it’s the diamox and topomax giving me the headaches. I’m not sure I’d go that far yet, though it’s a nice thought.
And finally, on our way home from all of this, I heard back from the neurologist’s acting nurse. She said she had been waiting for a response from him to her email. He said:
-He is not aware of Topomax causing depression or anxiety but knows that anticonvulsants (which Topomax is) in general can cause them. (The information about depression and anxiety in relation to topomax was a brand-new insert with my topomax prescription starting in December, so it stands to reason that he wouldn’t necessarily know about it yet.)
-He doesn’t think stopping the iron supplement would cause the headaches but that the depressed and anxious feelings could.
-I was on the topomax to control the IIH headaches, but I may not need that anymore.
-He wants me to cut the topomax dose by half (either cut the pill in half at morning and evening OR take only 1 dose per day), and if that doesn’t help the anxious and depressed feelings after 4 days and I’m still concerned, I should call back, and we can try another medication.
So, of course, it is entirely possibly that it is my condition, and not the medicine, causing the depressed and anxious feelings, but I’d like to see how this goes. Perhaps I’ll notice a difference in some way, either in pain (increased or decreased) or in anxious feelings.
So, now we’re back with a clean slate. Tonight, I’ll take my medicines as I’ve been taking them. I’ll probably eliminate tomorrow night’s topomax dose. I’ll stop doing strenuous exercise, and just walk or use the lighter exercises on the WiiFit (rather than the more strenuous EA Sport Active exercises that I was doing). That way, I’m back to where I was at the beginning of the month, when I was feeling so good and better, and the only change with be the topomax. (I sure don’t like being on the verge of tears all the time. I can be perfectly fine one second, then one little thought or word can just make me nearly break down, and that drives me nuts. I hate not being able to hold myself together a little better than that. I’d sure like to find out that’s caused by a medication rather than this condition, because that’s probably the thing that’s making it hardest for me to cope with everything right now, I think....I feel like my coping abilities are just derailed.)
I've been doing research online (always a double-edged sword) and joined an online support group for people with my condition (known by various names, including benign intracranial hypertension [BIH], pseudotumor cerebri [PTC], or idiopathic intracranial hypertension [IIH]). The time was particularly challenging emotionally because the greatest of the pain hit me on the weekend, when, of course, I knew it would be pointless to call my docs. So, some of you got to read lovely emotional emails from me, and some of you got to hear me nearly bawl on the phone, and some of you were spared it all together. Below is the medical summary of today, a very exhausting day. (By the way, you are included in the "contacts" I mention below. If you have any ideas or suggestions, as always, as in the summer, I'd love to hear them, and I thank you all for all that you do to make this world a better place for me and others.):
Well, today was a mixed bag of information. I still hadn’t heard from Dr. Hilburn (the neurologist) or his acting nurse about my concerns, even though I called early Monday morning, so I called this morning before 9 and left another message for her, asking for a call.
Then we were off to Indianapolis for my visit with Dr. Rieser, who hadn’t been kept updated on any of the recent activity in my life. So my visit with him was me bringing him up to speed on our conception and everything since then. He said he has “a couple” other patients with IIH, so he knows something of the disease, but he’s not up to date on everything about it. He thinks it’s great I’m doing my research and staying informed. He thinks the iron-deficiency anemia could be related, but he’s not sure about causality with the recent headaches. He said the iron count of 13 (what Mike remembers my iron count being last time it was taken at St. Vincent’s in October) is good and that he doesn’t think me taking supplements will make me overdose and produce too much, but it is possible that I was a little low when I started getting the headache flare-ups not long after my period AND starting the exercise again. He thinks the exercise may be the culprit. He suggested a book (Eating for Life) to me by an exercise physiologist, saying he’s had several patients (with IIH?) have good luck with it, losing weight this way. He suggests I “bag the exercise for now,” particularly the strenuous stuff, and try to lose weight through controlling food alone right now. Then maybe I can add exercise in later.
My overall impression is that, as always, Dr. Rieser is great. He said several times that I am really the best person to know what’s unusual for me and what’s not and to tell them (the doctor’s) what I think is going on. Of course, it’s their job to interpret, but he DOES listen AND consider, rather than just tossing everything out. He tells me WHY he thinks an idea doesn’t hold up or why it does, for that matter. So, maybe I’ll keep him as my primary care physician, after all, even though he is so far away.
I really don’t like the idea of not exercising. I think the exercising is what was really helping me lose weight, but I could be wrong. I do respect Dr. Rieser and his opinions, so I’ll give it a shot, after all. He said that he thought with the exercise, I was “setting myself up for a big fat failure,” in exercising, then having pain and not exercising because of the pain, etc. , even though weight is often an issue with the patients with IIH and they need to lose weight. That’s why he recommends this way of eating to most of them. He also asked what the other docs had said about conceiving and asked if I knew about the dangers of the other drugs I’m on in pregnancy. I said yes and explained that Dr. Hilburn had said that conception was okay and that, of course, the biggest concern would be for my health. And I told Dr. Rieser that I, of course, am scared of getting pregnant, primarily for my vision, though I do still want to have a baby. I teared up, and looked down and started writing, so Dr. Rieser filled in the gap by answering that he did think it was a good idea to wait 9 months to a year to get this IIH stabilized before we started thinking about conceiving. According to him, we’re “still young and healthy,” so that’s not a concern. I told him about my quest to find out more about women who’ve had pregnancies with IIH, especially after having the vision issues I’ve had, and he again said he thinks it’s great I’m keeping up on everything and that I can call anytime I have questions; if he can help, he will.
The visit with Dr. Lee was a little more mixed. There is no fluid on my optic nerves, so any vision issues I’ve had are not cause for more concern YET. My vision in my left eye is still 20/20, in my right eye, still 20/40. On this visit, I was given a color test, which I haven’t been given before. I got to try to pick out numbers formed from clusters of circles of various shades of one or two colors set against circles of other colors. I got 5/14 on my right eye and 14/14 in my left, although that was still a challenge. He says there is some pallor in my right optic disc, which we knew. That’s leftover from the optic nerve basically being oxygen deprived when the pressure cut off so much of the circulation to my eyes. That’s the eye, of course, that has far more problems than the other, visually.
Dr. Lee is concerned that my neurologist has said he doesn’t need to see me any longer unless I feel I need to be seen. He (Dr. Lee) thinks the neurologist should see me at least twice a year, to keep an eye on my progress, because the optic nerve sheath fenestration has “not great permanent results,” so we really have to keep an eye on my condition. He said he would far rather see me come in 10 times a month out of paranoia than not come in that one time that it really mattered. It’s funny, at first, Dr. Lee seemed really hard to get information out of, a little brusque, but now he seems to open up more and more every time we see him.
I had heard and read, of course, about ONSF “failing” but had not managed to find information, so we asked him about the rate, and he said that he would estimate it at greater than 50%. He said it’s basically a band-aid. Really, the point is to try to control pressure with medicines, weight loss, maybe even shunting (though that has its own failure rates in some patients), and that’s why the condition needs to be monitored, especially the cranial pressure. Anyway, when the ONSF “fails,” what happens is that the hole “plugs” back up when the pressure in the head goes back down, and then, if the pressure rises again, the hole has resealed with scar tissue and so there is no longer anywhere for the pressure to vent again, so you therefore have the need for a repeated procedure or for shunts.
Of course, I’ve been kicking around the idea for a while that Dr. Hilburn is a nice guy but just doesn’t seem to know much about IIH and isn’t the best doctor to manage my care for this, so when Dr. Lee again expressed his concern about this lack of observation, I asked Dr. Lee if, based on his experience of doing ONSF procedures, he knew of any neurologists he could refer me to. He said absolutely. I said of course, the problem is that I’m self-pay. Well, that made things a lot more difficult. Because we don’t live in Marion County, we can’t go to Wishart, which is always the first response. So he’s down to ONE person he can refer me to. One. She has a private practice but volunteers some of her time at IU Med School. He thinks she might be able to take me on there, but it might be a long wait before she can get me in. He dictated a letter to her while we were there, asking her if she could take us on, and then told me to give her a call in a week or two. This doctor is a neuro-ophthalmologist, so she can monitor both the IIH and the vision issues. That’s fantastic. When he mentioned that, it reminded me of information I’d found a few days ago about a neuro-opthalmologist up in Lafayette, Scott Sanders. He’s heard of Dr. Sanders, but only by name. He doesn’t know about his reputation at all. Neither do I, unfortunately…I can’t find anything on the man’s reputation.
Dr. Lee is concerned that, of course, we will have a harder time finding quality care for me because I am a self-pay patient, as we see with the immediate reduction in the number of specialists willing to see me). He told us that he recommend I get health insurance. (Gee, thanks, Doc, we hadn’t already thought of that!) It’s a very expensive disorder I have, and it’s going to cost a lot to monitor. He suggested Medicaid; I make too much money, I explained. He said apply, reapply, and reapply again. (I will, but I don’t think it will do any good.) He suggested getting individual insurance; I already tried and weighed too much, and now I have a preexisting condition, I explained. Mike said basically, our only hope is for him to get a job that would provide insurance to me despite my preexisting condition. Dr. Lee said something like, “There ya go,” or “Do what you have to,” and I responded that Mike has been unemployed and looking for a job for nearly a year now, it’s not so easy.
One last thing, Dr. Lee said, we might consider, is disability. We MIGHT be able to get it for blindness based on my visual field limitation in my right eye. But, he said, if I ever want to drive, I couldn’t do it, because to get disability based on blindness assumes permanent blindness so I would never be able to get a driver’s license, and if I ever tried to reapply for one, the government would come looking at my history and why I was suddenly “not blind” anymore. I also pointed out that if I’m getting disability payments, I can’t earn much money. He said it might be worth it to “be healthy.” I replied that it wouldn’t be worth it if we couldn’t afford to pay for food, clothing, or shelter, so our overall health would suffer. (Besides, I’m not so sure that a lot of people on disability have access to better care than I would, just because they have more options available.) Mike and I are still pretty sure that, despite the high cost of everything, given all our options, we’re still better off with me working as much as possible and remaining uninsured (though TRYING to find insurance) and paying for things out of pocket, making payments as/if necessary than any of the other options so far presented.
I’m still researching, using my contacts, the support group, every connection I can think of. I’m crossing my fingers. Dr. Lee even went so far as to suggest that perhaps everything I experienced was just a perfect storm with the hormone fluctuations from the miscarriage, my weight, etc., and that maybe now my body is back in its normal place and isn’t making excess CSF any longer and it’s the diamox and topomax giving me the headaches. I’m not sure I’d go that far yet, though it’s a nice thought.
And finally, on our way home from all of this, I heard back from the neurologist’s acting nurse. She said she had been waiting for a response from him to her email. He said:
-He is not aware of Topomax causing depression or anxiety but knows that anticonvulsants (which Topomax is) in general can cause them. (The information about depression and anxiety in relation to topomax was a brand-new insert with my topomax prescription starting in December, so it stands to reason that he wouldn’t necessarily know about it yet.)
-He doesn’t think stopping the iron supplement would cause the headaches but that the depressed and anxious feelings could.
-I was on the topomax to control the IIH headaches, but I may not need that anymore.
-He wants me to cut the topomax dose by half (either cut the pill in half at morning and evening OR take only 1 dose per day), and if that doesn’t help the anxious and depressed feelings after 4 days and I’m still concerned, I should call back, and we can try another medication.
So, of course, it is entirely possibly that it is my condition, and not the medicine, causing the depressed and anxious feelings, but I’d like to see how this goes. Perhaps I’ll notice a difference in some way, either in pain (increased or decreased) or in anxious feelings.
So, now we’re back with a clean slate. Tonight, I’ll take my medicines as I’ve been taking them. I’ll probably eliminate tomorrow night’s topomax dose. I’ll stop doing strenuous exercise, and just walk or use the lighter exercises on the WiiFit (rather than the more strenuous EA Sport Active exercises that I was doing). That way, I’m back to where I was at the beginning of the month, when I was feeling so good and better, and the only change with be the topomax. (I sure don’t like being on the verge of tears all the time. I can be perfectly fine one second, then one little thought or word can just make me nearly break down, and that drives me nuts. I hate not being able to hold myself together a little better than that. I’d sure like to find out that’s caused by a medication rather than this condition, because that’s probably the thing that’s making it hardest for me to cope with everything right now, I think....I feel like my coping abilities are just derailed.)
Saturday, January 9, 2010
What a Beautiful Mess
Well, good news on a few fronts. First, when I called in one of my medications for refill today, we learned that it will only cost $65 a month instead of $145. We aren’t sure why, but we think it’s because of the special Rx discount program for residents of our county. The other one will still cost $208 a month, we think, but this one savings was big enough savings to make us at least a little relieved, and we managed to get the really expensive one filled just before my Medicaid extension ran out at the end of December.
Second bit of good news is that Mike’s unemployment coverage doesn’t seem to have run out. He just had to put in the first week’s waiting period, so we have a week of no income from that front. That’s not great, considering that my freelancing has been nearly at a standstill for a couple of weeks (one project a week, at half or less of what I need to be making a week), but we can deal with it so long as it doesn’t drag on.
The third bit of good news is that Mike feels his interview on Thursday went well. He is one of five people being considered for the position, and he feels his chances are good. He is the only one with chemistry experience, which they really need. Plus, he has a little bit of management experience and experience with manufacturing and polymers from his job at CSI in Crawfordsville. Callbacks are supposed to be done late next week, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Mike gets to be one of them. Or even that they just decide to hire him outright with no need to do callbacks. Lol. Maybe that’s a bit too much to hope for, but at least there’s some more hope in our household.
My vision has stopped making drastic improvements, so it’s really hard for me to tell if change is being made. Mike seems to think my responses have improved when he “tests” my periphery, so maybe it is. Or maybe I’m just learning how to cope a little better. But I’m finding in the past week or so that I’m not nearly as sensitive to light glare and different types of light as I have been for the past several months, and I’m having an easier time reading small fonts on the TV at a distance than I was. It’s really hard to tell, though, if holes in my vision are clearing up when I can’t even tell in the first place where the holes were/are. I can read smaller and smaller things more easily still, so I’m led toward thinking my visual acuity is improving more, but I really think that has a lot to do with the obstructions being gone so I can actually make things out better. Bah, but who knows? (I still start to panic sometimes, like trying to walk in snow in a strange parking lot, when the snow blind seems worse than it ever did before my eyes had problems and when I couldn't distinguish any different depths and people are walking by quickly and cars are zooming by but all I can do is shuffle along and hope I don't fall or stumble. Nearly every day, I think about how much I feel like I'm "old before my time," having vision problems I "shouldn't" be having until I'm in my 70s or 80s, at least. And I know how they feel, I think.) I just try to keep my faith and keep praying, as my husband and friends remind me to do.
So, all in all, we’re doing better here in the Stringham household, though trying to avoid going out. The “winter storm” that hit the other day only brought us a few inches (5 or so) of snow, and the roads are clear, but the drifts at the end of our driveway actually made the Montero get stuck the other day so that we had to shovel it out a bit, and getting the mail feels like going wading in knee-deep water.
* Stringham high: Less-expensive drugs than we thought!
* Stringham low: Winter blahs
* Stringham super-high: Mike had an in-person INTERVIEW!
Second bit of good news is that Mike’s unemployment coverage doesn’t seem to have run out. He just had to put in the first week’s waiting period, so we have a week of no income from that front. That’s not great, considering that my freelancing has been nearly at a standstill for a couple of weeks (one project a week, at half or less of what I need to be making a week), but we can deal with it so long as it doesn’t drag on.
The third bit of good news is that Mike feels his interview on Thursday went well. He is one of five people being considered for the position, and he feels his chances are good. He is the only one with chemistry experience, which they really need. Plus, he has a little bit of management experience and experience with manufacturing and polymers from his job at CSI in Crawfordsville. Callbacks are supposed to be done late next week, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Mike gets to be one of them. Or even that they just decide to hire him outright with no need to do callbacks. Lol. Maybe that’s a bit too much to hope for, but at least there’s some more hope in our household.
My vision has stopped making drastic improvements, so it’s really hard for me to tell if change is being made. Mike seems to think my responses have improved when he “tests” my periphery, so maybe it is. Or maybe I’m just learning how to cope a little better. But I’m finding in the past week or so that I’m not nearly as sensitive to light glare and different types of light as I have been for the past several months, and I’m having an easier time reading small fonts on the TV at a distance than I was. It’s really hard to tell, though, if holes in my vision are clearing up when I can’t even tell in the first place where the holes were/are. I can read smaller and smaller things more easily still, so I’m led toward thinking my visual acuity is improving more, but I really think that has a lot to do with the obstructions being gone so I can actually make things out better. Bah, but who knows? (I still start to panic sometimes, like trying to walk in snow in a strange parking lot, when the snow blind seems worse than it ever did before my eyes had problems and when I couldn't distinguish any different depths and people are walking by quickly and cars are zooming by but all I can do is shuffle along and hope I don't fall or stumble. Nearly every day, I think about how much I feel like I'm "old before my time," having vision problems I "shouldn't" be having until I'm in my 70s or 80s, at least. And I know how they feel, I think.) I just try to keep my faith and keep praying, as my husband and friends remind me to do.
So, all in all, we’re doing better here in the Stringham household, though trying to avoid going out. The “winter storm” that hit the other day only brought us a few inches (5 or so) of snow, and the roads are clear, but the drifts at the end of our driveway actually made the Montero get stuck the other day so that we had to shovel it out a bit, and getting the mail feels like going wading in knee-deep water.
* Stringham high: Less-expensive drugs than we thought!
* Stringham low: Winter blahs
* Stringham super-high: Mike had an in-person INTERVIEW!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Just in Time for the Holidays
Dad called just as I was falling asleep last night to say he had taken Mom to the hospital. (Some of you will recall she had to have surgery last year because part of her small intestine had died and they had to remove it.) Last night, Mom noticed the same kind of pain she had been having that last time, so she had Dad take her in. The doctors don't know much yet, but they've done a CT scan or an MRI (depends on which parent you ask) and found some adhesions and are pumping her full of fluids via an IV, thinking maybe they caught it early enough that they can get the obstruction cleared on its own without having to do surgery. But they’re watching her and waiting to find out. And waiting for the surgeons to take a look and figure out what they want to do. Yes, it's a wonderful end to the year. And they were out having dinner with friends to celebrate my dad's birthday when she asked to be taken to the hospital, so that was an added bonus. *sigh*
While I was speaking to Mom this afternoon (she’s feeling much better than last night—no pain, but she hasn’t been allowed to eat or drink anything, so nothing could get in there to cause her pain) on the phone, Mike came in to tell me he has an interview after we come back from the holidays! Woohoo! He hasn’t had a phone interview since March of 2009, and this will be the first in-person interview he’s had since August of 2008 (not counting the one where an insurance guy was trying to get him to open his own little agency representation).
The interview is for a production manager position with a company in Plainsfield, not far from the Indianapolis airport. The company has about 40 employees, so they really like having people with a broad range of experience, and the guy Mike spoke with would be his direct supervisor if he gets hired on. The gentleman seemed to really like the fact that Mike had polymer (plastics to you English speakers) experience and a chemical engineering background. He also liked that Mike has some limited experience with manufacturing. The company is pretty new, only 11 months old, but we figure that’s okay. A job is still a job; if the company goes under in a year, that’s another year Mike can draw unemployment afterward if necessary, and if the company DOESN’T go under, Mike gets to be in at the ground level, so to speak.
Well, 2009 sure is doing a number on this family emotionally, let me tell ya! But right now, we’re okay with it as it stands.
Here's to a better 2010 (and getting this year over as quickly, quietly, and painlessly as possibly)!
* Stringham high: Mike's phone interview.
* Stringham low: Mom's hospitalization...but we're praying for her.
* Stringham super-high: Mike's scheduled LIVE interview!!!!
While I was speaking to Mom this afternoon (she’s feeling much better than last night—no pain, but she hasn’t been allowed to eat or drink anything, so nothing could get in there to cause her pain) on the phone, Mike came in to tell me he has an interview after we come back from the holidays! Woohoo! He hasn’t had a phone interview since March of 2009, and this will be the first in-person interview he’s had since August of 2008 (not counting the one where an insurance guy was trying to get him to open his own little agency representation).
The interview is for a production manager position with a company in Plainsfield, not far from the Indianapolis airport. The company has about 40 employees, so they really like having people with a broad range of experience, and the guy Mike spoke with would be his direct supervisor if he gets hired on. The gentleman seemed to really like the fact that Mike had polymer (plastics to you English speakers) experience and a chemical engineering background. He also liked that Mike has some limited experience with manufacturing. The company is pretty new, only 11 months old, but we figure that’s okay. A job is still a job; if the company goes under in a year, that’s another year Mike can draw unemployment afterward if necessary, and if the company DOESN’T go under, Mike gets to be in at the ground level, so to speak.
Well, 2009 sure is doing a number on this family emotionally, let me tell ya! But right now, we’re okay with it as it stands.
Here's to a better 2010 (and getting this year over as quickly, quietly, and painlessly as possibly)!
* Stringham high: Mike's phone interview.
* Stringham low: Mom's hospitalization...but we're praying for her.
* Stringham super-high: Mike's scheduled LIVE interview!!!!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
All I Want for Christmas (Okay, Not All, but It'll Do)
For those of you who are planning to get me a Christmas present and haven't yet gotten around to it, I offer you a very affordable suggestion. I've been really wanting one of these for several months, since I started my membership to LibraryThing and started cataloging my books online, but I couldn't justify getting one. But now, when it's a little harder for me to read the ISBNs on those books (and with all of my books, the ISBNs are the easiest ways to enter information), this would be greatly helpful. I'm speaking, of course, of a barcode scanner. And LibraryThing has one it created of its very own, of a sleeping kitty: http://www.librarything.com/cuecat
Shameless plug for a Christmas present? Yup, you betcha!
Happy Holidays to all!
Shameless plug for a Christmas present? Yup, you betcha!
Happy Holidays to all!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
I'm baaaa-aaaaack!
Well, I'm back, and I'm hoping to start posting somewhat regularly again. It occurred to me as I logged in that I created this blog because of an email that I sent in 2008 to update the family on the highs and lows in our life here, and right now, I'd settle for just a mediocre month. Seriously, I want a noneventful, boring-ass, mediocre month in which things all go as planned (and in which I can drive). Is that so much to ask?
Anyway, my eyes have recovered enough that I can now work again. I'm up to my old speed, but not quite up to my old stamina. Some days, I can work for 9 hours; other days, I'm lucky to get in 4. It seems my eyes get strained far more easily now, and just when I think they're back to...well, the old strength, I'm proved wrong.
Quick summary for anyone who isn't up to date: The neurologist says as long as my headaches don't come back and I don't have any other problems, he doesn't have to see me anymore. (This is great, but when the pregnancy Medicaid stops in, oh, any day now, we have to find a way to pay for the two medicines he prescribed, which cost about $350 a month combined.) My visual acuity continues to get better. The last visit was a couple of weeks ago, and my left eye was nearly 20/20, and the right eye was 20/70. Since then, I think, the right eye has improved further, though I have no way to prove that. Still, I have the visual-field disturbances and the narrowed field of vision. They have improved a little. The docs say they won't clear up. (The docs also said my vision would likely not get any better from the surgery, however, so I'm counting on the miracle of prayer to keep working on me.)
I have an appointment this coming Tuesday to check my visual field and something else. We think this appointment will be to see how much "corrective lenses" will be able to help me. We hope it will also be to set me up with some corrective lenses. I think that would help me work better, because some days, my eyes just get tired as hell, and me along with them. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I have another appointment with the opthalmologist (the one who did the surgery). I'm hoping that will be the last follow-up I have with any doctor for quite some time. Making a trip to Indy about every other week to sit and wait in doctors' offices is getting a bit tiresome.
Anyway, that's the haps for now. I have work to keep me busy, and only my stamina is occasionally getting in the way there, and I'm hoping the stamina problem will be helped with glasses. Again, keep praying and/or sending your positive thoughts this way. It's possible I may never regain my peripheral vision or any more vision in my right eye, and I may never be able to drive again. But miracles still happen in this world, and I know I've already experienced at least a couple dozen, so keep praying, and we'll make more of my vision come back.
And to all of you who have called and sent letters and cards and prayers and money and any other emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual support, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from the bottoms of our hearts!
* Stringham high: FREE large-screen computer monitor from AWESOME friends!
* Stringham low: Duh!
* Stringham super-high: My vision continues to improve (in very small ways).
Anyway, my eyes have recovered enough that I can now work again. I'm up to my old speed, but not quite up to my old stamina. Some days, I can work for 9 hours; other days, I'm lucky to get in 4. It seems my eyes get strained far more easily now, and just when I think they're back to...well, the old strength, I'm proved wrong.
Quick summary for anyone who isn't up to date: The neurologist says as long as my headaches don't come back and I don't have any other problems, he doesn't have to see me anymore. (This is great, but when the pregnancy Medicaid stops in, oh, any day now, we have to find a way to pay for the two medicines he prescribed, which cost about $350 a month combined.) My visual acuity continues to get better. The last visit was a couple of weeks ago, and my left eye was nearly 20/20, and the right eye was 20/70. Since then, I think, the right eye has improved further, though I have no way to prove that. Still, I have the visual-field disturbances and the narrowed field of vision. They have improved a little. The docs say they won't clear up. (The docs also said my vision would likely not get any better from the surgery, however, so I'm counting on the miracle of prayer to keep working on me.)
I have an appointment this coming Tuesday to check my visual field and something else. We think this appointment will be to see how much "corrective lenses" will be able to help me. We hope it will also be to set me up with some corrective lenses. I think that would help me work better, because some days, my eyes just get tired as hell, and me along with them. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I have another appointment with the opthalmologist (the one who did the surgery). I'm hoping that will be the last follow-up I have with any doctor for quite some time. Making a trip to Indy about every other week to sit and wait in doctors' offices is getting a bit tiresome.
Anyway, that's the haps for now. I have work to keep me busy, and only my stamina is occasionally getting in the way there, and I'm hoping the stamina problem will be helped with glasses. Again, keep praying and/or sending your positive thoughts this way. It's possible I may never regain my peripheral vision or any more vision in my right eye, and I may never be able to drive again. But miracles still happen in this world, and I know I've already experienced at least a couple dozen, so keep praying, and we'll make more of my vision come back.
And to all of you who have called and sent letters and cards and prayers and money and any other emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual support, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from the bottoms of our hearts!
* Stringham high: FREE large-screen computer monitor from AWESOME friends!
* Stringham low: Duh!
* Stringham super-high: My vision continues to improve (in very small ways).
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A Stroll down Memory Lane (the Conclusion)
Warning: Again, some content is graphic. Do not read if easily disgusted or offended.
More details of what happened earlier this week.
I remember saying to Pam (the ER nurse) at some point that I wasn’t worried about the miscarriage meaning I couldn’t get pregnant, because I knew better. But I was worried about the implications of what I was going through on future pregnancies. Given how stressed I was and how much blood I had lost, I have no idea if what I meant is what I said, but I remember thinking about how much blood I had lost and how someone had made the comment about “you redheads” and “your beautiful complexions” and how we bleed more than most everyone.
Anyway, Dr. Abate came in around 8 Monday morning and asked if I still wanted to do a D&C. When I said I did, he explained the risks and probabilities and had me sign a new consent form, then explained that because it wasn’t an emergency surgery, they’d fit me in whenever they could, probably around lunchtime. That sounded fine to me.
M and I talked a little bit more. It may have been at that point (or earlier in the morning) that he mentioned that someone at the hospital—one of the nurses, he thought—had said it was possible that I had actually had a period, too, so that all the blood may have been what was left behind from the pregnancy AND what had built up from a menstrual cycle. I told him that was interesting, because I had wondered about that possibility (some changes in the bleeding, some hormonal, arousal, and sleeping changes that happen near my period) but had kind of written it off as being silly and not very likely. But it certainly would have explained WHY there was SO VERY much blood Sunday night after I had already had several episodes of fairly heavy bleeding over the past few weeks.
Around 8:45, M took off to take care of the cats. Maury had started peeing in places he shouldn’t be peeing in just before we left the night before, so he had been locked in a room with food, water, and a litter box ALL BY HIMSELF all night. So we knew he’d need some attention. Plus, M wanted to clean the bathroom up (we had left it a mess in our rush to leave) and maybe get some sleep. He left, telling me to call him when I was done with surgery and he’d come to get me. I made a couple of phone calls to reschedule appointments and notify my parents of what was going on, etc. Then I took the opportunity to nap as much as I could.
I think it was around 11:00 when I heard a knock on the door and a woman’s voice say, “Time to wake up. No more sleeping!” I looked to the door and saw a short, kind of squarish nun come in. She smiled beautifully and introduced herself as Sister Lucille. She asked how I was doing and if I was getting good care. I told her the care I had been receiving was wonderful. (It truly was exceptional—everyone was fantastic, no one talked down to us or ordered us around, and everyone answered any and every question the two of us had had). Then she told me to bundle up and go back to sleep because it was very cold and very windy outside. (I was confused, because I could have sworn it was her voice that had told me, not a minute before, that it was time to stop sleeping…) I told her I was surprised to see it cold and windy because it had been a beautiful, sunny morning last time I had looked out the window. Then she left, and as soon as she closed the room door behind her, I noticed the smell of honeysuckle. My whole room smelled like honeysuckle just long enough for me to get two or three full breaths of it.
At that point, I was awake fully again, so I started making some notes to myself. Around 11:20, a couple of ladies came in to tell me they were from surgery and were taking me downstairs. I called M to let him know, and he told me to call when I got out. I told him I didn’t know if I’d be able to because my phone battery was almost dead, but one of the nurses said she’d be in recovery with me, so she’d make sure he got called when I was done.
I got wheeled down to the hall next to the OR and placed in the hallway across from the anesthesiologist’s office. I commented that it was kind of chilly in the hallway, so a nurse covered me with a warm blanket that felt like it was fresh out of the dryer. It was heavenly. I was introduced to the nurses and the anesthesiologist, was asked if I knew why I was there and what to expect and if I had any questions, was asked to indicate and sign a form about my preference for blood transfusion if it seemed necessary, and was told we’d be going whenever Dr. Abate got there. I lay awake for a bit, listening to the lunchtime conversations going on around me, and then drifted off to sleep. After a while, I woke up, and the anesthesiologist came by to apologize for the long wait, saying he didn’t know what was keeping Dr. Abate. I said that was fine, I was just using the opportunity to nap, anyway. (I figured that would keep me calm so I couldn’t be awake and worry and obsess.) I fell asleep again, and then one of the nurses came by to say that Dr. Abate had just called and said he would be right there. I drifted off again, and then Dr. Abate was there, explaining everything to me again, asking if I had any questions, apologizing for the belching because he had just downed a Coke quickly on his way to the hospital, and asking if M was there. I explained that M had gone home and needed a call when everything was done, so he took M’s number, and they started wheeling me toward the OR. I had no idea what time it was, as I had had to remove my watch before they rolled me to the OR area and I hadn’t been able to see any clocks in the hallway.
Just as the foot of my bed entered the doorway into the OR, a nurse picked up the phone and said that my husband was asking for me. I wondered just HOW long the surgery had been delayed. Dr. Abate asked if M wanted to talk to him or me, so the nurse asked and then gave the phone to me. I told him I was JUST being wheeled in. M said he’d come down to the waiting area there, but I heard Dr. Abate tell me to just tell him he’d go up to my room to talk to M as soon as we were done. So M stayed put in my room in OB. It was about 1 PM. Wow, I guess Dr. Abate had been REALLY delayed, since the office is only about ¼ mile from the hospital.
They wheeled me into the OR, introduced me, had me move over to the operating table, stretched my right arm out onto a support board, told me they’d be putting out a board for my left arm, and told me they were putting an oxygen mask on my face. I had long enough to say a silent prayer and take two breaths of oxygen, and I was out. Oxygen, my ass. I figured when they put the mask down that there was anesthesia in it, but DAMN, that was fast!
Next thing I know, I’m waking up and can barely move anything. The words “damn Mack truck” kept chasing themselves around in my brain, along with a little snort of laughter. I started moving body parts experimentally, noticing the stiffness in my toes, the heaviness in my eyelids, the inability of my head to move up or down without great pain. I listened to the nurse watching me make calls about finding cheap hotel reservations to a 4-star hotel in Chicago. I listened to another nurse complain about how she couldn’t get the DVD that came with a new piece of equipment to play in her computer. I wanted to ask her what kind of problems she was having, and I heard someone say something about PDFs. I couldn’t say anything yet. I listened to two of the nurses tell another one that she should just go home, as there was nothing else going on that day. I listened to them talk about bringing in food for the next day and calling another woman to remind her that it was her turn. I asked about what they were doing the next day, and the nurse told me that one of their own had just had surgery, and they were all taking turns bringing meals to her at home.
I kept stretching and moving slowly, “testing the waters,” as it were. I heard a nurse asked me if I wanted some more pain medication, and I managed to indicate my assent. Then I felt my legs cramp. The nurse was out of my line of sight, and I started hitting the rails of the bed with my arms. I couldn’t talk. I could only whimper, and finally managed to get out “legs…cramping.” The nurse made it back just about then and injected the pain med and said something like, “We warned you about the leg cramps, but you never can quite prepare for them.” Meanwhile, I was, rather mean-spiritedly, thinking, No one told me about any damn leg cramps. Unless it was after I was already under the anesthesia. I would have remembered talk of leg cramps. Stupid freaking leg cramps. But by this time, I had felt the rather unpleasant tingling surge as the pain medicine was injected through my IV and then the blessed release of my leg muscles. There, that’s better.
I saw a clock. I remember the minute hand was on the 8, but I can’t remember much more about that. I asked the nurse how long I had been in recovery. She told me we had gone in around 20 ’til, had finished up around 20 after, and I had been in recovery about 30 minutes. At least I think that’s what she said. That doesn’t jive up with what I know now, but the math worked at the time. I think it actually worked out to about 20 minutes of surgery and about 30 minutes before I woke up. Stupid anesthesia. I can remember crap of no consequence to me that they were talking about, but I can’t remember details she told me about my own surgery. Actually, I’ll bet that little bit of memory modification is a result of the pain med that had just been injected. I remember the other stuff so well because Dr. Abate had told M that morning that he could tell me any secrets while I was under anesthesia and I wouldn’t remember a bit of it later, so I was determined to remember everything said around me. (Plus, nosey Nancy that I am, I had been listening to see what would be said around me while everyone thought I was still under…an experiment, of sorts, a peek into the everyday lives of surgery nurses.—I had learned while waiting in the hall that I was the last surgery of the day, that no one understood how the hell Dr. Abate was so delayed, that the nurses were going to hurry and eat lunch before Dr. Abate got there, that everyone who works down there is always freezing…)
Anyway, I spent the next few minutes (no idea how long) continually moving and stretching legs, fingers, toes, neck, etc., until I could move in just about every direction—but still couldn’t move my head up or down—that would lead to nasty pains. Turns out that’s because I had had a tube down my throat. The nurse gave me some ice chips at intervals, and I remember thinking she was amazingly good at that because I still had no real feeling in my lips and couldn’t get my jaw to close around the spoon enough and yet no ice pieces were falling out of my mouth. Oh, God, those ice chips felt good after not having water for more than 12 hours! Every time she offered, I managed to croak, “yes, please,” and then “thank you.” I even managed to request ice of my own accord once or twice.
Anyway, after a while longer (who knows how long? I was mostly “conscious” but focused largely internally at that point), I was wheeled back up to my room, where M was waiting, apparently rather nervously. The OB nurse asked if I wanted food or juice or water, and I said just ice. My throat wouldn’t allow for anything more than that, I was pretty sure. She brought some ice chips, and I was happy for about an hour. We were watching some food show on the travel channel, though, and I was getting hungry. Very hungry. Where in the world is she now that I’m hungry? I thought. I got up to use the restroom and walk around the room a bit. M still had some saltines, so I requested a couple of those from him and that he get me some more ice. By this point, he knew where to find everything on the floor. Finally, the nurse came and asked if I was ready for dinner. Oh, hallelujah!
She brought that plate of food in, and it looked heavenly. There was even iced tea! After the first couple of bites, I felt a little sick and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to eat all of it. But then I figured out it was just an issue of how my bed was adjusted, so I rearranged myself, and that food disappeared. It was probably the best hospital food I’ve ever had. I’m not one to knock hospital food, having eaten in hospital cafeterias fairly often for various reasons, but this was better than stuff you can get off all-you-can-eat buffets. The rice was buttery and sweet, the stewed tomatoes were fantastic, and the grapes and peaches were…well, grapes and peaches. The meat, which I think was supposed to be Salisbury steak, was rather bland, but I had enough pepper to fix that.
About an hour after eating, I was free to go, with my three prescriptions—iron because I’m now anemic, vitamin C to help me absorb the iron better, and a stool softener to keep the iron from constipating me. I was in track pants, a blue patterned t-shirt, slip-on shoes that I use for garden work, and a flannel shirt that was green, pink, and yellow. I wore no bra (I was too sore to even try to struggle with that). My hair, which hadn’t been touched since just before we left Sunday night for the hospital, was everywhere, without even the benefit of the headband that I had been wearing while exercising on Sunday night. I hadn’t bathed since Sunday morning, and my teeth hadn’t been brushed since Sunday morning. Boy, I must have been beautiful! We got to the pharmacy at, apparently, the peak of the Monday-night pharmacy rush after everyone got off of work. I knew I wasn’t pretty, but I didn’t care. We were in line to get my meds, because they had been called in hours before, and we gave them the Medicaid information, so we had to wait while they ran everything through the system. We turned to sit in the chairs near the pick-up line, and I saw a woman giving me a bit of a nasty glance, as though offended that I couldn’t have dressed normally to come out in public. I returned her gaze coolly, sat down, and reached under the sleeve of my flannel to make sure my hospital bling was showing. I didn’t give a shit what she thought, but I figured the bracelets might keep other people from giving me more judgmental glances and causing me to offend them by laughing at their shocked faces. Yes, I had laughed at that lady, and even whispered to M about the look she had given me.
We finally got home, and M made himself some dinner. Yes, I also partook. I was still hungry. I fell asleep while we watched a movie, then, while M slept on the couch, I did some work. Well, I was a day behind. We slept for about 14 hours. I fought off a headache all day on Tuesday and sat in the dark, watching a DVD of The Ghost Whisperer. Then I napped a little later in the afternoon to get rid of the headache, which I assumed was hanging out because of the after effects of anesthesia and the tube down my throat, because my neck muscles were still a little stiff and made me feel like I had been clenching my teeth. I got up and did a little more work, journaled, and went to bed as the headache neared epic proportions again.
Wednesday morning was cruel. I had awakened many times in the night to pee and to try to have a BM (nothing so wonderful as hours without food and drink and then surgery and hardly any physical activity to slow and block those passages). Finally, the BM had happened, and I slept for hours afterward for my abdominal muscles to recuperate. I woke up to head pain that just got worse and worse as the day went on.
Yesterday’s Journal Entry:
Today, the mother of all migraines. The meanest, ugliest, most hardcore migraine I could ever imagine. Actually, I could never imagine this much pain. I had woke up about every hour last night to pee and to try to poop (constipation from not having food and then of not having enough of the right food and water). So I woke up around 11:30, very sore and exhausted from finally having had a forced BM after several tries through the night (my body decided it was time and wouldn’t take no for an answer). Mike brought in a box of flowers that the guys at Dog Ear had sent.
I was up for about an hour before my head started killing me again. It had been killing me when we went to bed last night, and I had been popping Tylenol every 4 or 6 hours as I woke up, but the headache hit. My vision was crazy, my head pounded, and I was nauseous. I thought maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten in more than 12 hours, so I asked Mike to make me some breakfast. I managed a few bites, but the nausea got worse, and movement and sound all made it worse. Finally, around 1:30 or 2, I called the doctor’s office. Dr. Abate isn’t in on Wednesdays, but the nurse wanted me to come in. Mike took a shower, and I used all that time to get dressed, trying to move as little as possible.
Finally, at the doctor’s office, the nurse measured my BP and asked if these were like the migraines I’ve had before (I’d told her on the phone that I’d had them but this went beyond those). I told her again that if this was a migraine, it was the worst I’d ever experienced. I’d NEVER experienced such pain before. She told me that I had the look of someone with a migraine, and she asked what I’d been taking for this one and if I’ve taken migraine medication before. She said Dr. Abate figured this was a migraine, because of the big drop in hormones. I explained that that made sense, given that my migraines usually hit because of hormone fluctuations near my period. Dr. Abate had given her permission to write a script for Imitrex for me, so she explained how to take it. We filled it immediately at CVS and went home. I took the first pill at 3 PM and was finally able to eat a package of saltines around 4. By 5, the pain was mostly gone, but the symptoms were still around, so I took another pill.
Fell asleep on the living room floor until nearly 7:30. Headache started coming back, so I took another pill at 8. So far, that’s 3 of the 4 allowed in a 24-hour period. Joy. I’m going to take the last one at 10 tonight and pray that that kicks it out…to at least tolerable levels until 3 PM tomorrow.
I slept until about 10, so another 10-hour sleep. I awoke feeling pretty good because I hadn’t got up much in the night to pee or change sleeping positions. Then I got up and hated my head. Most of the pain and stiffness elsewhere in my body was gone, for which I was eternally grateful. I took two Tylenol because my head hurt every time I moved, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do more Imitrex until 3 PM, and we were hours away from there. I managed to eat some microwaveable soup and saltines, but then I thought I was going to cry. The pain got nearly unbearable around 11:30 or 12:00. I’ve never had trigger foods for migraines, but I wonder if something in the soup triggered a worse reaction, because DAMN! I took my little self into the bedroom, put on a sleeping mask, and slept until M came in a little after 3 PM.
I decided to do what I could without Imitrex, knowing that I have 5 left and that they have to get me through the weekend or I’ll have to do a hospital visit and have Dr. Abate paged. Plus, as a friend told me the other day, Imitrex is “hardcore,” and the after-headaches can be just as bad as the original. Joy. (This week has only reinforced my dislike for surgical and medical intervention unless it’s absolutely necessary. They kick my ass. I found myself thinking several times yesterday and today that I almost preferred the nonstop bleeding to the freaking migraine.) So I sat up for a bit, and when the pain started coming back, I took a couple Ibuprofens and had a can of Coke. My vision’s still a little screwy, but I managed to sit in the living room with the curtains all open and the overhead light on and still function. Woohoo!
M refuses to get me the Big Mac and fries I’ve been craving since 5 AM Monday. (Not even my sweetest pleadings worked—I think he doesn’t want to drive ANYMORE, despite what he tells me about not wanting to hear me complain about feeling crummy after having junk food.) So I’m now waiting on baked salmon and rice. I hope it’s as good as it smells, because I’m starving. Since my hospital dinner, I’ve had almost only carbs and fat—rotini pasta with Italian dressing and parmesan cheese, boxed mac ‘n’ cheese, a couple of scrambled eggs (I said ALMOST only carbs), three hash browns, 2 or 3 packages of saltine crackers, 2 ½ cans of Coke, and that bowl of microwaveable “chicken” noodle soup.
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