Today was a good day.
Or rather, it was a good day until I realized that I hadn’t checked my home phone voicemail since Sunday and that there was a chance that my neurologist had called.
She had.
Her message said exactly what I feared it would. Everything is normal. No leak. [...]
1. A THREE day wait before getting a blood patch that might stop my head from hurting MORE when I’m upright.
2. Another needle in my spine. Even if it’s going to help.
3. My classmates making snarky comments when I’m RIGHT NEXT TO THEM about how it’s harder to learn when [...]
I know you’re tired of hearing about my pain and worries and neuroses. I really do.
I know my real life friends are and I DEFINITELY know twitter is.
I’ve used this blog as my free therapy for a while now. For the past 120 pain filled days this has [...]
I don’t understand you. And I really don’t get how my being in pain brings out the nasty in you.
If I am feeling hopeless, it is NOT okay for you to tell me that my hopelessness is probably a cause of my pain. If I am upset, I do not [...]
On November 27th, 2007, I did what I thought was best for myself. I had a surgery, which for all intents and purposes, was elective.
I chose to have a skilled neurosurgeon remove a piece of my skull, of my first 2 vertebrae, release connective tissue in my brain and [...]
I’m going to be honest with you, as I lie flat on my back on my living room couch, in unfair amounts of pain, I’m having trouble being thankful.
It’s not that I don’t have much to be grateful for, because that’s not true. Even I’m not that self-involved. I [...]
I understand that a lot of you don’t understand why I’m upset. Because for all intents and purposes, this is crazy. I should not be devastated to hear that everything’s normal. I know that.
Except.
Except that everything is so clearly not normal. I have heinous headaches, low pressure in my head, [...]
Just got a call from the people at nuclear medicine. I have to go back tomorrow morning for one last set of (painless just boring) scans.
But, the tech told me that the radiologist looked over my scans and said that everything looks “perfectly fine.”
Perfectly. Fine.
I am devastated.
This is why I [...]
There is much to be said about today. To be described, rehashed and of course, whined about.
But I’m exhausted. I left the house at 5:45 this morning, had a needle jammed into my spine, 40 minutes of imagine and hours upon hours of waiting and lying flat and just [...]
Tomorrow morning, I will get up with the sun. I will shower, I will not eat breakfast or have a diet coke, I will dress in comfortable clothes and I will pack distractions (absolutely none of which will be academic, for the record).
I will ride in the car for [...]
On Monday my mom, dad and husband will be walking me into a hospital.
The last time this happened, was November 27th, 2007, the day I had brain surgery.
I’m glad my family is coming for the cisternogram, I’m glad for the support, but I cannot deny that the situation [...]
I had forgotten until my professor reminded us in class last week that we have an upcoming project. We each have to take on a disability for a day and write a paper about what we learned from the struggles of those 24 hours. To be honest, I had all [...]
After days of phone tag with nuclear medicine, I finally got a call and got the cisternogram scheduled.
When the nurse gave me the information, I flipped open my iCal, plugged in the information about my appointment and realized, with a mix of happiness (over finally having it scheduled) [...]
I’m tired of this headache. This horrible horrible headache.
I’m tired of talking about it.
I’m tired of thinking about it.
I know you’re tired of hearing about it. Sorry.
I’m tired of playing phone tag with my neurologist’s office.
I’m tired of being jerked around by the nuclear medicine scheduling office and still not [...]
Today is Maddie’s 2nd birthday.
Today, Maddie should be entering the phase of tantrums and misbehavior and mischief. She should be running around the house with sharp or forbidden objects and hiding from her mom and tormenting her dog. She should be mesmerized by Elmo and Abby Cadabby and Dora [...]
I had another exam this afternoon, making the 3rd in 3 weeks. And of course I have 2 more planned this month because I just can’t get enough of them.
But I only took one of the two tests that my classmates took today because I realized last week that [...]
As a child, I hated sleep. I fought my parents every night at bedtime, thinking that if I cried long enough or hard enough or came up with enough time-wasting tasks, they might not make me sleep at all. Much to my dismay, this never worked. But it didn’t stop [...]
I wish I could come up with a better way of telling you that today was a rough day. It seems like every day is a rough day lately, but today was a different kind.
In my morning class, we went over hand functionality. I don’t talk very much about it [...]
Today was a rough day.
It began with a totally unimproved sore throat and a worse than normal headache with tingling all over the left side of my face. Next up was extra traffic that nearly caused me to be late for class. And that was time I desperately needed [...]
I have a test tomorrow morning. A test for a class that I’ve only been to 3 times of the 7 times the class has been held. A class which I’ve condensed down into a study guide, 12 pages long, of information I HAVE to know. Most of which I [...]
catch a cold/virus/life-sucking germ, and then keep on going.
Because the only thing less bearable than being 3 weeks behind in school with a 13 week old headache, is being 3 weeks behind in school with a 13 week headache, the worst sore throat of your life and a fever.
WOE IS [...]
Tonight I attended a wedding. I love me a good wedding, but friends, this wasn’t a good wedding. This was an amazing wedding.
I told the groom on what was the second to last dance, that this wedding, his wedding, reminded me of how much I love my husband (leave [...]
Tomorrow night, I’m flying to New Orleans.
Before you ask, yes, flying is a horrible idea. Yes, I am aware of this. Yes, I’m doing it anyway.
I NEED this trip.
I need to go back to that city, my city, and I need to get out of this one.
I need [...]
Missing school has always been something I struggled with. When I told my mom I wanted to stay home in high school, she always said yes, fever or no, because she knew how hard it was for me to admit I needed to. Because she knew that I hated being [...]
After 3 hours of sleep, which was halted by indescribable head pain, an exam that I can only hope to have passed, and an afternoon of classes that served only to remind me how little I knew, I lost it.
The tears poured from my eyes like water from a faucet. [...]
It has been 12 weeks since my head hasn’t hurt.
That’s 84 days.
That’s 2016 hours.
That’s 3 months.
One-fourth of this year I’ve been in constant, horrible pain.
That sentence is devastating to type, to read. I’ve lost a quarter of this year to misery. I’ve lost a quarter [...]
This morning I got an email alert about a new comment on my Be Okay post. The comment said:
“Being sick doesn’t give you permission to act like a horse’s ass!”
My first reaction was annoyance, because I do not understand blog trolls. Seriously. Just don’t get it.
My second reaction was [...]
Today, I experienced one of the worst headaches of my life.
Today, I left school after only an hour and a half.
Today, I acknowledged that this is no way to live.
Today, I accepted that there are somethings scarier than a second brain surgery.
Today, I realized that living in this kind of [...]
One of the things I’ve struggled with in this huge mess of health shenanigans is the well-intended people in my life. In particular, the prevalence of the statement of, “don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”
I know this sounds benign (and asshole-ish. Please don’t misunderstand my frustration with being ungrateful for [...]
I wake up at 5:30 and take a quick assessment. Does my head hurt? Of course it does. How could I have thought otherwise? Does it hurt so much I can’t get up? No.
Not yet, I think to myself.
And I get up. I shower, get dressed, find food and [...]
(I am going to write about the trip to Las Vegas soon, but I’m not ready yet. I’m still in the processing phase and I know I won’t do justice to all that transpired if I try to crank a post out about it right now.)
Though a lot of things [...]
I always feel like I need to put some sort of “about me” post up when I know I’m getting ready to meet a bunch of new bloggers. And I wrote it out, read it and realized that it was just sort of a regurgitation of my 100 things [...]
I had the blood patch today and I swear to you, it almost ended my marriage, but that’s beside the point.
We arrived 15 minutes late (it RAINED in Los Angeles today and for whatever reason, water falling from the sky erases the all the driving memories of Californian drivers and [...]
So, I called the neurologist’s office today because the spinal headache just wasn’t stopping and I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Yes, internets, I asked for help.
Astoundingly, the neurologist actually called me back (and then was like, oh, I see you left messages before. I’m so sorry. You didn’t [...]
Tomorrow marks a week since the frigging lumbar puncture of doom.
4 cc’s of CSF have been sent to a laboratory with a few vials of blood and tomorrow we get to find out what, if anything, those samples will tell us. This scares the bejeesus out of me. There are [...]
Everytime I feel like I might be turning a corner and things might be improving, the road straighten itself and moves that corner eleventy billion more miles away.
I was ready to face today. I was ready to start being upright, to deal with pain and get on with it.
I [...]
As much as I like to pretend like I have thick skin and that I can brush off jokes here and there, I don’t and I can’t. Not even a little bit.
Sometimes I know that someone doesn’t mean to be mean or harsh, but it hurts just as much. [...]
You didn’t really think I was going to ignore the day’s current events, right? And I’m not here to stir any pots, but I am going to speak frankly. And if that offends you, then please accept my apologies, or don’t, and just stop reading.
Tonight, President Obama delivered a speech [...]
Today was the new neurologist appointment. To say that I went into it with trepidation, is like saying that ice caps are cold. I had put a lot of hope in this appointment and I was prepared to be disappointed. Because I’m an optimist like that.
My appointment was for [...]
Since BlogHer, Slappy and I have been toying with the idea of getting a new camera.
You see, our camera is from around 1999, and while that digital technology was pretty rocking in 1999, the fact that you click the button to take the picture and 10 minutes later it [...]
A year ago I was driving riding dead asleep in a car on the way back from Nashville. We were on the way back to New Orleans, after evacuating from Hurricane Gustav. On the way back from a week filled with fear, worry, frustration, elation, Sara Palin and most of [...]
So, last night while I was finishing editing the emergency room story, I got a call from my older (perfect) sister. She told me that she was telling a friend about my headache and that friend has some connection (that I’m not entirely clear about) at the very neurology office [...]
Friday afternoon, I of course, had a ferocious headache. I was feeling pretty run down, but nothing totally out of the normal for my life lately. I got out of class early and on a slightly earlier than normal train with a friend and more than thrilled to be on [...]
Alternate title: Where I (almost!) don’t talk about this raging headache!
It seems that since moving my site here, I’ve been getting decidedly more awesome keyword searches to this blog. Many of these are totally not okay to share (um, hi, grandma’s having sex is NOT something you’ll find here, let [...]
Today marks 4 weeks since my head started hurting. Which is 29 days (because I’m counting today, no, I don’t suck that much at math) of my life, completely drowned with pain. I feel helpless, my friends and family feel helpless. And really? We are.
I will tell you all about [...]
On route to ER. Will update with more info later.
9:38pm update:
EKG done, blood draw 2/3s done. After the 3rd failed attempt, I was in tears and Slappy told her we were done. Waiting for IV tech to come do last draw and place an IV.
Miserable.
11:36pm update:
In [...]
I want to tell you all about about a really amazingly momentous night tonight was. But truly, this is potentially the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life.
I’m okay for now (I live with a doctor, we’ll be safe), but I’m just going to bed. And hoping beyond hope [...]
I know that people (ahem, my husband) think that Twitter is annoying. Or overrated. Or useless. Or all of those put together. Well doubters, today, twitter saved my ass. Like almost literally.
I know you’ll be shocked to hear it, but it was yet ANOTHER day of calamity on the train. [...]
I know. I thought I couldn’t outdo the wrong bus event. But, it’s me we’re talking about and at least in terms of public humiliation, I did.
Monday morning, my first morning of grad school, started off well. I got up at the ass crack of dawn, got to the [...]
