Recap - on Friday I left for Gatlinburg with Julie and her brother Tim. Friday was a not-feeling-good day, so I was glad Tim was driving. We got to the cabin laaate - however the huge group in the cabin across from us was still partying it up! haha. We went to bed. The mountains were awesome and the weather was GORGEOUS! We played and played and played. We were originally planning on skiing but it was too warm, which was fine by me so we played countless rounds of darts, pool, Wii Fit, and cards with some football and running thrown in for good measure. Oh and Saturday night we walked down the strip in Gatlinburg and Sunday night we went to Pigeon Forge and played putt putt, go carts, and Tim and Julie did bungee jumping - it was fun to watch. Let's see, we came home (to Julie and Tim's parents' house in Clanton, AL) Monday. We played volleyball at their church Monday night which was SO MUCH FUN! I haven't played volleyball in forever. It was downhill from there...
Monday night my headache came back not long before bed, and just got worse and worse. I moved to the couch at 1 AM b/c I was afraid of keeping Julie up. Took an Imitrex but it didn't help at all. I got pretty much zero sleep (deja vu from last Monday night...blah!). So although I was planning to drive back to Opelika Tuesday morning, that didn't happen. Still felt bad the rest of the day, so I ended up spending the night there again last night. Luckily I did sleep last night. So this morning I drove home for my doctor's appointment at 9:45. I've been there 4x in 4 weeks. This is not my style! I haven't been to the doctor that many times since my freshman year of college when I was perpetually sick (turned out to be wicked "seasonal" allergies - don't they know we don't have seasons in the South? Seasonal allergies last year round!).
So anyway, my doctor said something to the effect of, "I guess I haven't done a very good job of helping you." And I'm like, well it is what it is, but it's got to stop. So he gave me a referral to a neurologist (everyone who was on Team Neurologist is cheering...) which means, they send him my chart notes and MRI results and he looks them over and then his office will call me to schedule an appointment. In the meantime, we're dropping the current meds and switching to Topamax in hopes of preventing the headaches (please work, please please work!) - but it's kind of a slow process, titrating up to the full dosage over 4 weeks. I haven't made 4 weeks on any medication, so we'll see if I make it that long with this one. Oh and he said I could still take the Imitrex if I need it. Well the thing about that is - after the first time I haven't had great results. It takes at least an hour for me to feel any relief, and up to three hours for the full effect. And like Monday night it didn't help at all. AND I can't get it refilled for another 3 weeks b/c that's the way insurance works. One prescription is only 9 pills - I've taken 5 1/2 in a week! We're in trouble...
Oh and I'm calling to get a gynecologist appointment tomorrow (everyone on Team Gynecologist is cheering...) so that they can do blood work and test my hormone levels to see if that's the problem. Is anyone else's Team left out? I'm seriously taking bets on the mystery diagnosis, so let me know your guess if you want to win the prize!
In BigHouse news - we're adding our BigHouse Babies to the after-school program. I say adding - they are DOMINATING the after-school program in numbers! The parents are sooo excited! And we are too. I love all our littles! Oh this is sweet, I have to share: one of the foster moms wrote on my facebook wall this afternoon. She said, "Ryan really missed you yesterday at BigHouse. He wants to be sure that you are feeling better by Thursday so he included you in his prayers last night without any prompting from Nana!!" (Nana is what Ryan, age 3, calls her. He bonded with me when we did music therapy together one morning last fall. Love him!) Oh it made me tear up to read that! It's very discouraging to be sick for so long, and I know that prayer is what is keeping my head above water right now. I'm SO THANKFUL for every prayer you've been praying for me! And when I see Ryan tomorrow I'm going to thank him too!
"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." James 5:16
