I'm pretty much done being big and brave. Mom and Dad are on their way here to come and get me and take me home to Fairview. Since none of the doctors here know what's going on, we're going to start over in Nashville where there's at least a bigger pool of doctors and hospitals. I don't want to think about starting over, obviously, but at least we know more than we knew a month ago - we know all the meds that don't work, and we know the MRI was normal, and we know what the neurologist said, and we know that I should have lab results back on Monday.
My mom told me to make sure I have some dress clothes and shoes too in case we have to have Bucky's funeral soon. That's my grandmother. She's not doing well. Obviously she hasn't been since her knee replacement surgery followed by heart attack over Thanksgiving, but all the sudden this week she's gone gotten worse apparently. The hospice nurse told them to make funeral arrangements. We'll see.
I'm upset about leaving. I don't want to leave my friends. I'll have my family, but my friends are here. :(
I don't know when I'll be coming back. I don't know what will happen. I'm tired. I won't have internet at my parents' house so I won't be able to update the blog. Just keep praying. Thanks.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tried really hard to get in the hospital this morning. I just didn't want to go through the ER because I didn't want to waste my time and energy. So I went to my doctor's office. My doctor wasn't there today, but I saw the other guy, and he said I didn't need to go to the hospital to run tests unless I fell off a building or something (I feel like I could jump off one...does that count?) but he did do blood work to check my hormones and blood counts and thyroid and all that good stuff, so hopefully by Monday we'll have some answers on that. He gave me some worthless prescriptions that I have no intentions of filling. Other than that, no news. I took another sleeping pill just because I don't have anything better to do until they tell me what is going to stop my headaches besides sleeping. Great. So you know where to find me if you need me. If you have a gun, sneak up on me. :)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Running Downhill Fast
This is getting stupid. DRAW MY BLOOD. LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE. PAIN PILLS DON'T WORK. In the meantime, let me sleep. That's all I care about.
I don't believe I have migraines, I don't believe that at all. Look outside the box before you look inside it for the hundredth time, and don't freakin give me anything else with acetominophen in it or I'm going to throw it in your face.
Why is this taking so long? Why does everyone make it sound like rocket science? Just make my head stop hurting, that's all I want. Please. Don't make me start over. Don't make me wait any more. Don't make Julie have to drive me all over creation and waste her life too.
In case you wondered, the neurologist thinks I have chronic migraines and wants to try these injections for the next three days as well as ramping up the Topamax real quick, and if that doesn't work then she suggested being admitted to the hospital for further testing. Great. Fantastic. Might as well. I'm wasting my life away anyway. Might as well get some testing done all at once. And some sleep. And a balloon. If I go to the hospital, somebody please bring me a balloon. That's all. Thanks. I love you all.
I don't believe I have migraines, I don't believe that at all. Look outside the box before you look inside it for the hundredth time, and don't freakin give me anything else with acetominophen in it or I'm going to throw it in your face.
Why is this taking so long? Why does everyone make it sound like rocket science? Just make my head stop hurting, that's all I want. Please. Don't make me start over. Don't make me wait any more. Don't make Julie have to drive me all over creation and waste her life too.
In case you wondered, the neurologist thinks I have chronic migraines and wants to try these injections for the next three days as well as ramping up the Topamax real quick, and if that doesn't work then she suggested being admitted to the hospital for further testing. Great. Fantastic. Might as well. I'm wasting my life away anyway. Might as well get some testing done all at once. And some sleep. And a balloon. If I go to the hospital, somebody please bring me a balloon. That's all. Thanks. I love you all.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Two months
Yeah I need some therapy today. It's been two months of headaches. I'm at the end of my rope. I just got an email from my dad that said "Hang in there." Yeah. Well. I'm ready for someone else to hang for me, I'm tired. I'm tired of telling my story a hundred times. I'm tired of spending money on meds that don't work. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of hurting. I'm tired of being sick.
Here's the update, for what it's worth:
Woke up with a killer headache yesterday. Took the last 150 mg of Imitrex that I had. Missed church. Julie took me to urgent care. Dr. was nice and more talkative than my regular guy. Tested my blood sugar since I hadn't eaten - it was normal (we can strike out diabetes, for those who are keeping score). He had concerns about my blood pressure being high (it's been all over the place recently, from what I remember, and I think it might have been high yesterday b/c of the Imitrex, but whatever the case..) so he gave me two prescriptions (yes you may laugh - the number of prescriptions I've had in a month is a JOKE) - one for a water pill, so that if the blood pressure is the issue, I should see some relief, and bupap which is a tension headache medicine - similar to the first medicine I had - epidrin. Oh and he was also going to call the neurologist and try to get me moved up the list (I have no idea how long I'll be waiting for an appt..I'm trying not to freak out about that). And he wasn't concerned about my hormones but said if I wasn't feeling better by Wednesday I could come back (which was at least better than my dr who always 6 weeks which is a JOKE) and they would draw them then and do a full panel of stuff.
So then we went to track down the meds..Sam's pharmacy was closed; Publix had the water pill but not the bupap, CVS didn't have it either, so we came home and Julie called a Kroger and they had it so we went there. Pause - praise the Lord for Julie! She's taken care of me, and I made her do all the talking yesterday at the doctor's office b/c I'm tired. I would be dead already without her! Play - ok so we got it and I took two doses last night but I didn't feel any relief. I did end up taking a tylenol PM before bed (don't worry we made sure I wasn't ODing on acetominophen) and I slept well.
This morning woke up with a headache and nausea, blah blah, same song, one millionth verse. I'm emotionally drained (see top). Made it to BH and got some work done this morning. My headache's gotten progressively worse and the bupap I took hasn't touched it, so I'm going home to hopefully sleep and feel better. :( I CAN'T STAND NOT BEING AT BIGHOUSE! It is killing me.
Here's the update, for what it's worth:
Woke up with a killer headache yesterday. Took the last 150 mg of Imitrex that I had. Missed church. Julie took me to urgent care. Dr. was nice and more talkative than my regular guy. Tested my blood sugar since I hadn't eaten - it was normal (we can strike out diabetes, for those who are keeping score). He had concerns about my blood pressure being high (it's been all over the place recently, from what I remember, and I think it might have been high yesterday b/c of the Imitrex, but whatever the case..) so he gave me two prescriptions (yes you may laugh - the number of prescriptions I've had in a month is a JOKE) - one for a water pill, so that if the blood pressure is the issue, I should see some relief, and bupap which is a tension headache medicine - similar to the first medicine I had - epidrin. Oh and he was also going to call the neurologist and try to get me moved up the list (I have no idea how long I'll be waiting for an appt..I'm trying not to freak out about that). And he wasn't concerned about my hormones but said if I wasn't feeling better by Wednesday I could come back (which was at least better than my dr who always 6 weeks which is a JOKE) and they would draw them then and do a full panel of stuff.
So then we went to track down the meds..Sam's pharmacy was closed; Publix had the water pill but not the bupap, CVS didn't have it either, so we came home and Julie called a Kroger and they had it so we went there. Pause - praise the Lord for Julie! She's taken care of me, and I made her do all the talking yesterday at the doctor's office b/c I'm tired. I would be dead already without her! Play - ok so we got it and I took two doses last night but I didn't feel any relief. I did end up taking a tylenol PM before bed (don't worry we made sure I wasn't ODing on acetominophen) and I slept well.
This morning woke up with a headache and nausea, blah blah, same song, one millionth verse. I'm emotionally drained (see top). Made it to BH and got some work done this morning. My headache's gotten progressively worse and the bupap I took hasn't touched it, so I'm going home to hopefully sleep and feel better. :( I CAN'T STAND NOT BEING AT BIGHOUSE! It is killing me.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
I really wanted to run today
BigHouse - we had 14 kids and 8 volunteers at Kids' Night Out on Friday. It was lots of fun. I think the parents had a good night too. :) We have such sweet kiddos and awesome volunteers!
My headache went from bad to worse Friday night and I ended up taking an Imitrex at 10:45 since the pain was keeping me awake, and then took a 2nd one at 12:45 b/c I didn't get any relief from the first one. Finally slept from 2-6AM. :/ I'm down to 1 1/2 Imitrex. Not enough to stop a bad all-night headache, so the next one's going to send me to the hospital I think. I'm out of ammo.
My plan is to go to the urgent care clinic after church tomorrow that's going to do lab work for me (so I don't have to wait for a gynecology appointment - yay!). Julie set that up for me. The urgent care is near her house and she talked to the dr on facebook the other night - cool! I'm really curious to see if they're weird stuff going on with my hormones/blood sugar/iron/red cells/white cells/whatever else they can see in your blood! And if all that comes back normal..well..maybe this doctor will have other ideas about what might be going on. I'm also hoping maybe he can give me something besides Imitrex that will stop headaches while we're waiting on the Topamax to build up in my system (which will hopefully prevent them). Since I can't get a refill of Imitrex for another 3 weeks anyway! Still waiting on the neurologist to call me with an appointment - I might die waiting on that!
So basically...I'm really hopefully about tomorrow, and that's going to get me through tonight and tomorrow morning!
Today was pretty good. I got to see Heather! She and Adam came to Opelika to celebrate her birthday along with Micah's. We went to the Irish Bred Pub and then played the game I got her called Funglish.
K I'm going to bed b/c 4 hours of sleep last night is just not enough. C-ya.
My headache went from bad to worse Friday night and I ended up taking an Imitrex at 10:45 since the pain was keeping me awake, and then took a 2nd one at 12:45 b/c I didn't get any relief from the first one. Finally slept from 2-6AM. :/ I'm down to 1 1/2 Imitrex. Not enough to stop a bad all-night headache, so the next one's going to send me to the hospital I think. I'm out of ammo.
My plan is to go to the urgent care clinic after church tomorrow that's going to do lab work for me (so I don't have to wait for a gynecology appointment - yay!). Julie set that up for me. The urgent care is near her house and she talked to the dr on facebook the other night - cool! I'm really curious to see if they're weird stuff going on with my hormones/blood sugar/iron/red cells/white cells/whatever else they can see in your blood! And if all that comes back normal..well..maybe this doctor will have other ideas about what might be going on. I'm also hoping maybe he can give me something besides Imitrex that will stop headaches while we're waiting on the Topamax to build up in my system (which will hopefully prevent them). Since I can't get a refill of Imitrex for another 3 weeks anyway! Still waiting on the neurologist to call me with an appointment - I might die waiting on that!
So basically...I'm really hopefully about tomorrow, and that's going to get me through tonight and tomorrow morning!
Today was pretty good. I got to see Heather! She and Adam came to Opelika to celebrate her birthday along with Micah's. We went to the Irish Bred Pub and then played the game I got her called Funglish.
K I'm going to bed b/c 4 hours of sleep last night is just not enough. C-ya.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Gatlinburg and Doctor Visit #4
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
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
Thursday, February 17, 2011
No Tumors - yay
Called my doctor's office and got my MRI results - they were normal. Which is great! I don't know what the next step as far as tests will be...I'm thinking maybe allergy testing since I tend to get sick (severe headache/nausea/etc) after eating, although sometimes I can eat and be fine, and sometimes I get sick at random times, not after meals.
I also found out that I can't take the Imitrex every day - only for severe headaches (which I tend to get at least one a day...) so I guess I'll have to try to figure out when I want to tough it out and when I want to feel better. Blah. Hopefully the other medicine will build up in my system quickly and help prevent the headaches - that's the idea anyway.
At BigHouse this afternoon the kids are going to be making peanut butter dog biscuits for a dog shelter. One of our high school volunteers (my Johanna) is an officer for FFA at the high school - their group is going on Saturday to the dog shelter, so they'll be taking the treats with them. We want our kids to learn about ways they can help out in the community and "pay-it-forward". They're also making Chex Mix "puppy chow" for snack and will be bagging up the rest to give to the FFA students who are giving up their Saturday to help out at the shelter.
Can we please keep this amazing weather all year? This is my favorite February weather!
I also found out that I can't take the Imitrex every day - only for severe headaches (which I tend to get at least one a day...) so I guess I'll have to try to figure out when I want to tough it out and when I want to feel better. Blah. Hopefully the other medicine will build up in my system quickly and help prevent the headaches - that's the idea anyway.
At BigHouse this afternoon the kids are going to be making peanut butter dog biscuits for a dog shelter. One of our high school volunteers (my Johanna) is an officer for FFA at the high school - their group is going on Saturday to the dog shelter, so they'll be taking the treats with them. We want our kids to learn about ways they can help out in the community and "pay-it-forward". They're also making Chex Mix "puppy chow" for snack and will be bagging up the rest to give to the FFA students who are giving up their Saturday to help out at the shelter.
Can we please keep this amazing weather all year? This is my favorite February weather!
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