Another Day, Another Migraine.

I had my first real migraine in a while, and it did not disappoint.

That's exactly how I feel right now.

Last night, I was just lying on the couch, watching the Simpson's marathon...

 ...playing with the idea of working, and just generally minding my own business when it hit me.

Then the visual disturbances arrived.

This is seriously what it looks like through my eyes during a migraine.

I knew I was in for a long night.

Doug was upset, because he had to go to bed, but he wanted to stay up and take care of me. He kept telling me to wake him if I needed him. I figured I could lie around, drooling on myself, having seizure-like and stroke-like activity (I have hemiplegic migraines which often mimic a stroke), and crying without an audience.

I ended up lying on the couch, alternating between sleeping, crying, and watching what seems like the never ending Simpson's marathon on FXX. (Why are there two x's?) Then, my migraine moved on to the headache phase.

This went on for several hours.

Sometime after five, I decided to crawl from the couch to the bed.

That's honestly about as far as I made it on the first try.

Doug woke up and asked me if I was okay. I insisted that I was fine just so he'd go back to sleep.

He hugged me and went back to sleep. I made sure my alarm was set so I could make sure he was awake and getting ready. (I wasn't kidding when I said he could sleep through a nuclear war.) I don't think I woke up, and if he roused me to ask me how I was, I probably responded with something like this:

I took some more pain meds. Things were a blur from there. I vaguely remember The Cleveland Show on Adult Swim, and I think I may have heard the intro to King of the Hill.

The above gif is how I felt while lying down. No matter what position I tried, I felt dizzy and like I was floating when I shut my eyes.

Then I fell into a deep and not so dreamless sleep.

When I woke up, I realized just how badly last night's migraine had destroyed me.

I had to go to the loo...

where I was attacked by sunlight pouring through the bathroom window.

I'm so glad it's dark in my bedroom.

I forced myself to crawl to the kitchen and somehow managed to prepare a cup of coffee. (Thank God for whoever invented the Keurig.)

The coffee offered a little relief, but it also woke me up enough to allow me to realize that I am in the postdrome phase. During the postdrome phase, some people experience euphoria. I wish I were one of them, but I experience the sadness of having a setback.

So instead of lying in my bed, crying over the fact that I've just endured a bad migraine for the first time in weeks, I decided focus what little energy I had on this blog post, with the hopes of making my readers laugh. It took me several trips, but I got my laptop, and a pair of sunglasses, and crawled into bed. I turned down the brightness on my computer, because even with my sunglasses on, it's too bright, and I giggled as I looked through the pictures and gifs I had that I could use in this post.

Don't let the blog post fool you though.

For, me, it's mostly the die aspect. I rarely have nausea/vomiting with my migraines. It just seemed like an appropriate gif to share since most migraine sufferers do have those symptoms with their migraines.

People always try to offer helpful advice, but I've heard it all.

• Drink more water. (Tried that. No effect whatsoever.)
• Drink less caffeine. (I cut back to one cup of coffee and two sodas per day.)
• Get more sleep. (It's not like I don't try.)
• Get less sleep. (How can I get less sleep when I bloody have insomnia?!?)
• Avoid food triggers. (Good luck with that.)
• Avoid stress. (Giggles hysterically and uncontrollably.)

And the list of not so helpful advice goes on. Then, there are the naysayers who have never really and actually experienced a migraine or chronic pain of any kind, so they have the audacity to say things that make me feel like punching them dead in the face.

As a matter of fact, here is a handy list of what NOT to say to someone with chronic migraines or any other chronic illness.

Most of these make me want to smash things.

I have improved slightly since last night, but not enough.

Here are two pain charts that accurately describe migraines. They also made me giggle.

Here's what they chart above says:

0. Fine. What is a headache?

1. Wait...It's coming...

2. This sucks.

3. Ow ow ow ow OW

4. Blaargh! $#@?! This hurts!

5. Was there a time before pain and will a power drill make it better?

6. Am I dying? I think this is what dying feels like.

Number 7 is my favourite!

Number 10 made me laugh so hard it hurt.

Doug is on his way home to fuss over me.

I'm totally making him sing it, too!

Until he gets here, I will do my best to entertain myself while listening to Gadi Mizrahi. (His music sounds like the series of noises that one would hear during an MRI, and I find it oddly comforting during the postdrome phase, but during a real MRI, I'm having a full on panic attack.) I will try not to focus on the lack of euphoria that I get to experience. 

So until next time, please say some prayers for me.

Cheers.

House M.D. Tribute.

House M.D. ended May 21st, 2012. It's probably going to be replaced with some sort of rubbish that is not the least bit funny nor educational. That's usually what happens. The network will probably end up putting another Family Guy-esque type show that's worse than Family Guy itself.

I'll stop whinging now.

Thanks for the memories!

Goodbye February, Hello March!

I was so glad to see February go. It was the worst month of 2012, for me anyway. I hope everyone else had a better February than I did! For those who are just in, let's recap February. We moved from our spacious, modern apartment to a cottage. Doug and I both got really sick. We celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary. Doug finally got better, but I spent the entire month sick. But wait, there's more...

Let's back up a bit. There are a few other health issues going on in my life right now that I had not planned on posting. (I never post anything until I tell my mother, *lol* so she won't read it and be like, "OMG, why didn't you tell me?") In January, right before we moved, I found a mass in my back, on the lower left side. At first, I was upset, but we were in the middle of packing and moving, so I didn't really say or do much about it. Once the move was over, I called and made an appointment. I thought it was a hormone secreting tumor because there were other issues that happened to coincide with this mass.

I have also been having a lot of eye problems. Right after we moved, I was drying my hair and noticed that I have a mass under my left eye. It was about the size of a pellet from a BB gun, but now, it has increased in size. It hasn't affected my vision any, which is good, I think. I haven't gotten in with anyone yet, but I plan on taking care of it as soon as possible.

So February was pretty lousy. We were both sick on our eleventh anniversary, but we went out to lunch anyway. Doug didn't want the day to go by without us doing anything. We did have a nice lunch. Then, we spent the rest of the evening sleeping on the couch while attempting to watch television. Like I said, the eleventh anniversary is illness. Anyway, Doug is completely recovered. Unfortunately for me, I was sick the entire month of February, and I can't seem to shake this illness, although today I felt better than I have since before we moved. I hope I'm finally on the mend now.

If being sick isn't bad enough, I ended up having to undergo a minor procedure. But before I continue...

The following blog has not been rated and contains humorous content, and a vague description of a minor surgery. Viewer discretion is advised.

On February 23rd, I went to my appointment to get the mass in my back checked out, and the doctor wanted to look at some other things too. The appointment was at 2:30 p.m., and I get there fifteen minutes early. I thought I was bad because I was ahead of schedule, but I didn't count on the fact that doctors have their own time zone. At three o'clock, they give me a whole bunch of papers to fill out, which is what I thought they would do when I got there fifteen minutes early, but that's not how it worked out. I was sick, tired, hungry, and rather impatient at that point, but I filled the paperwork out and took it back to the desk. As soon as I went to the loo to blow my nose, they called me back. Figures. Should have done that sooner! *lol* I get back into the room at 3:30, but the doctor doesn't see me until four. He wanted to do some other tests after I explained my symptoms, which was fine. That's what I was there for. Little did I know, I was going to have a minor procedure. Now before I begin my story, I am not going to explain the minor procedure in great detail. If you would like to know what happened, you can email me here.

I was in a room, sort of like this one.

But, the room I was in was stark white, and more brightly lit, and when they laid me down for the procedure, the sun was in my eyes. Of course, at that time, the blinding sun didn't matter.

The doctor did some tests and discovered this:

Well, not exactly...but the picture made me giggle! The doctor actually discovered another thing that had appeared out of nowhere and was wreaking havoc on my body.

So they discover this issue, and instead of sending Doug out of the room, the doctor said, "Go stand over there with her and hold her hand." I was glad he let Doug stay, but it also scared me when he told him to go hold my hand. The first thing that ran through my mind was that this must have be serious.

(I LOVE this picture!)

Then, the doctor said, "I need a clamp." I asked, "What is going on?" Then, the doctor explained to me that he found what he suspected, and then he had the audacity to tell me not to worry. When you go to the doctor, and they tell you they're going to remove something from your body and send it off to a lab to be tested, and they tell you not to worry, well, that's a superfluous request because you're going to worry! I'm laying on the table, holding back tears. Then, the nurse brings in the clamp. As soon as I saw it, I said, "Please, I need a minute, I'm going to faint." And the doctor, who I dearly love, I mean, he's great, no joke, said, "That's okay, because you're already laying down." Everyone thought that was funny but me. (It's funny now, but it wasn't at the time.) I laughed nervously, but that didn't keep me from crying.

The doctor assured me that I wasn't going to feel any pain, just pressure, but what I failed to mention to him was that I am like the princess in the story of The Princess and the Pea. I am so sensitive to anything having to do with my body. I can't take prescription medicine because I have a hyperchemical sensitivity to everything, which means that I have had an allergic reaction to almost every medication I have taken. I can barely take a Tylenol without having a reaction to it! My list of drug allergies could fill a book, not to mention that I have had allergic reactions to foods and lotions. Last Sunday, I put some Jergen's Ultra Healing lotion on my hands, and within seconds, my hands broke out in hives! I've also had certain foods that have caused my lips to swell up, but I can't pinpoint what those foods are, except for one. If I eat seeds from any pepper, even a bell pepper, my lips swell up. I can eat the pepper itself all day, but one seed, and my lips are like Angelina Jolie's for a little while. I won a lottery that I didn't know I was even playing. So even though the doctor promised me it wouldn't hurt, IT HURT!

The procedure was over in fifteen minutes, but I had to lay down for an hour and a half before I could get up to leave. My favorite nurse brought me some cold cloths and a glass of water, and they didn't try to hurry me out of there. I had to regain composure before I could talk with the doctor though. It was weird because I could feel myself slipping away, kind of like I was going to faint, so I kept talking to Doug to keep myself from slipping into unconsciousness. He stood there and kept holding my hand.

Doug adjusted the table for me so I could sit up for a little bit and drink the water. I tried to stand up about ten minutes later, and was successful, but I needed that extra time to be certain I wouldn't faint or get sick on the way to the car. The nurse brought the doctor back in to check on me. I asked him some questions, but I was still in an altered state of consciousness, so I forgot to ask him two really important questions. I did inquire about what to expect post procedure, which was the usual stuff, bleeding, nausea, vomiting, and pain. Thankfully I never experienced nausea or vomiting, just pain mostly.

Unfortunately, my minor procedure made Doug late for work. We tried contacting a few people to see if someone could stay with me, but everyone had plans, and Doug didn't feel comfortable with the thought of leaving me to begin with, so he called in, and a half hour later, I decided I was ready to go home. I thanked my favorite nurse who took such good care of me, then Doug took me out to the car, and we headed toward home. Doug was hungry, so we stopped by Arby's, then Wendy's because I wanted a salad. I was really hungry, which was surprising. I ended up eating an entire container of loaded potato bites on the way home. I had Doug put my salad away, and I ate several onion rings that he had purchased at Arby's, and went to bed. I slept off and on until almost ten o'clock that night, and I was still hungry when I woke up! *lol* So I ate my salad and watched television. I ended up sleeping on the couch until Doug took me to bed when he was ready to go for the night.

I essentially spent the remainder of February in bed, but the good news is that in the last two weeks, I accomplished a massive amount of writing. I also found out this past Saturday that my friend, who also happens to be my editor, is ready for me to start sending pieces. My goal is to have the first book published by October 2013. Now it's full speed ahead. I'm ready and excited, but I also understand that I'm facing a very large amount of time consuming work because now, it's all about perfecting the first book of the series; editing, cutting content, adding content, changing things, and embracing the changes that need to be made. I have my work cut out for me...but I'm up for the challenge. The problem is that I'm such a perfectionist and I will second guess the heck out of the content I decide to publish. *sighs* I have faith in my friend/editor.

Despite the fact that February was a bad month, Doug and I made it to eleven years, and despite illness, I got some writing accomplished. (For me, a day without writing is like a day without breathing.) March is still in the making, so here's to hoping for an awesome month of the birth of colorful tulips, wearing floppies, and soaking up the warmth of the sun!

Hope everyone has a great month!