after an odd turn of events & being migraine-free for about a month for NO reason whatsoever(incredible nonetheless), out of nowhere i wake up on saturday with a sick feeling of one coming on. getting out of bed & going out to take my mind off things did nothing. what was worse was we had my best friend flying in that evening to throw my bridal shower. over the course of the day i downed 4 extra strength tylenol & about 4 codeine (which i stole from my fiance)...nothing took the edge off and i was dedicated to staying off imitrex. i went to bed after having about 3 baths, 2 induced massages of my neck & spine and a bunch of mint and teas...it really sucks having someone come over that you love & having to stay keeled over and mumbling to talk to them in the worst pain imaginable.
so i woke up the day of the shower and it was back. i have no idea how i slept through the night. i did the whole tylenol/codeine thing again & got a de-caf coffee from timothy's to try and trick my brain into recovery...after about a 3 hour nap with my fiance (we were both dead tired & stressed for medical reasons) i got the knock on my door to be taken to the shower. dad & fiance spent the day together while i was with the ladies...ended up having a great time but wished i didn't have to dodge all my usual favourite decadent foods. held my own though...which i was very proud of.
went to dinner with fiance, mom, dad & sister and had a bland and small enough meal to finish. it was comforting eating comfort food with my parents who i haven't seen in 10 months...got home & went to bed around 9 and woke up the next morning fine enough...
no idea where that came from...but it was mixed with the flu...horrible!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
the latest dream that i should sell for a screenplay
before i forget...
so last night's medication-induced drama was actually quite entertaining!
it's already 9:30 am so i'll have to try hard to remember the pieces...
yesterday we spent the post-ct-scan recovery playing board games. i know you're not supposed to open wedding gifts before the wedding, but we really (really) couldn't help it. it was too tempting! so we spent the entire day on the warpath, with a glass or two of wine and the great game of risk. which definitely seeped into my dream!
goes as follows:
s and i were driving somewhere in the dark and pulled to the side of the road because we saw something in the bushes. upon pulling away the branches (i think my subconscience pulled this part out of the movie "children of men") we saw a small old-fashioned tv and a note that we could watch a movie for free. so we sat hidden in the branches watching a pretty long movie. there was an old house in the background and the lights were all off.
all of a sudden i came to the realization that nothing in life is free and we must be playing into some kind of a trap. s agreed and we turned around to see the lights in the house turned on, and two adolescent boys were approaching our car in the driveway. it was then daytime. we ran to the car and the boys walked a bit past us so that we were able to jump in and speed away (just in time). they chased after us on bikes, but our car was able to beat them (pretty good for a volvo!). we had forgotten something back on the road, so we drove back, hoping that they had gone home and forgotten about us.
cut to: (this is where the boardgame came in) watching a general strategize over the next moves his army is going to make in the war against a women who's face was very distinctive. i didn't recognize this face, but for some reason this army general wanted her destroyed so sent out men with bows and arrows to destroy her. all of a sudden the men were met with millions of this woman riding horses like the calvalry and they were equally matched. as they collided, one man crashed into one of these horse-riding women and they piled on top of each collision so that a great wall was formed. (hard to explain but i can still see it). she was somehow defeated and a man and his sidekick took her captive. the setting then switched to something i could picture out of "a handmaid's tale".
cut to: these two men driving this woman around and holding her captive for political control of a country. i'm pretty sure they killed her at one point but then there was a great event (such as a flood or something) that wiped out the entire population. she was then able to come back to life, and after the flood, every single person in the population looked identical to this woman. amidst clones, the man trying to kill her was unable to differentiate between her and all of the other people in the country. she then ran into a cornfield and somehow (as an observer) i realized that her shoes or something about her was distinctive and would give her away. the mean marched up and down the corn and she was barely able to stay hidden.
then she was found...a whole lot of chasing scenes ensued and one involving some sort of monster truck getaway....that's the best i can do. odd.
so last night's medication-induced drama was actually quite entertaining!
it's already 9:30 am so i'll have to try hard to remember the pieces...
yesterday we spent the post-ct-scan recovery playing board games. i know you're not supposed to open wedding gifts before the wedding, but we really (really) couldn't help it. it was too tempting! so we spent the entire day on the warpath, with a glass or two of wine and the great game of risk. which definitely seeped into my dream!
goes as follows:
s and i were driving somewhere in the dark and pulled to the side of the road because we saw something in the bushes. upon pulling away the branches (i think my subconscience pulled this part out of the movie "children of men") we saw a small old-fashioned tv and a note that we could watch a movie for free. so we sat hidden in the branches watching a pretty long movie. there was an old house in the background and the lights were all off.
all of a sudden i came to the realization that nothing in life is free and we must be playing into some kind of a trap. s agreed and we turned around to see the lights in the house turned on, and two adolescent boys were approaching our car in the driveway. it was then daytime. we ran to the car and the boys walked a bit past us so that we were able to jump in and speed away (just in time). they chased after us on bikes, but our car was able to beat them (pretty good for a volvo!). we had forgotten something back on the road, so we drove back, hoping that they had gone home and forgotten about us.
cut to: (this is where the boardgame came in) watching a general strategize over the next moves his army is going to make in the war against a women who's face was very distinctive. i didn't recognize this face, but for some reason this army general wanted her destroyed so sent out men with bows and arrows to destroy her. all of a sudden the men were met with millions of this woman riding horses like the calvalry and they were equally matched. as they collided, one man crashed into one of these horse-riding women and they piled on top of each collision so that a great wall was formed. (hard to explain but i can still see it). she was somehow defeated and a man and his sidekick took her captive. the setting then switched to something i could picture out of "a handmaid's tale".
cut to: these two men driving this woman around and holding her captive for political control of a country. i'm pretty sure they killed her at one point but then there was a great event (such as a flood or something) that wiped out the entire population. she was then able to come back to life, and after the flood, every single person in the population looked identical to this woman. amidst clones, the man trying to kill her was unable to differentiate between her and all of the other people in the country. she then ran into a cornfield and somehow (as an observer) i realized that her shoes or something about her was distinctive and would give her away. the mean marched up and down the corn and she was barely able to stay hidden.
then she was found...a whole lot of chasing scenes ensued and one involving some sort of monster truck getaway....that's the best i can do. odd.
globe & mail
ive added a link here to a recurrent comment section on the globe and mail.
since reporting the "new" research on the linkage of migraine and stroke in women, i found it again not surprising that many sufferers feel as hopeless as myself in the situation. it's astounding the number of people who share stories like mine...i just wish we were taken seriously at a political/r&d level.
this morning i felt one coming on. i feel congested in my sinuses and head-heavy though there's a lack of humidity and nothing but dry sunny weather. a strong coffee is holding it back, we'll see if she stays.
on a non-medical note: i am getting rediculously giddy and excited for our upcoming wedding. in the diluted hysteria that is now life, it seems to be the only thing that matters. we got the license the other day and instead of feeling nervous, i felt strengthened knowing it feels so right. so bring on the stress since in many ways we're stronger & happier than we've ever been.
since reporting the "new" research on the linkage of migraine and stroke in women, i found it again not surprising that many sufferers feel as hopeless as myself in the situation. it's astounding the number of people who share stories like mine...i just wish we were taken seriously at a political/r&d level.
this morning i felt one coming on. i feel congested in my sinuses and head-heavy though there's a lack of humidity and nothing but dry sunny weather. a strong coffee is holding it back, we'll see if she stays.
on a non-medical note: i am getting rediculously giddy and excited for our upcoming wedding. in the diluted hysteria that is now life, it seems to be the only thing that matters. we got the license the other day and instead of feeling nervous, i felt strengthened knowing it feels so right. so bring on the stress since in many ways we're stronger & happier than we've ever been.
Friday, August 10, 2007
on sleep patterns and stress...
for the most part, i haven't suffered a single migraine since his diagnosis.
the amount of worry and love you pour into another person while they're sick leaves you no time to worry about yourself. it if anything marginalizes my pain. now i know how my parents must have felt when i was little and had migraines, leaving them helpless but worried. with huge medical burdens hanging over the two of us now, at times it's hard to keep perspective and make sense of any of it.
a few days ago with the rain-associated pressure change i had a light migraine (if there is such a thing) that went away after a few hours.
yesterday however was bad. i think it's a sleep-deprivation one from last weekend that i still have to pay for...that and waiting on my thesis draft to come back to me i'm so bored that i have the ability to oversleep. the number 1 thing you can't do and avoid a migraine. so yesterday i left the apt laden with my books i recently picked up from the library (one by david suzuki, a financial one, noam chomsky, something about marriage and some career book...all very random but by their own right interesting) and took off to bridgehead. i adore reading and it's all too sad that i'm usually too busy to, so it's great to have some time to indulge. it wasn't before long that it hit, and by the time i was on the bus home i felt pretty sick. i did the whole "maybe if i close my eyes, maybe if i focus on the horizon..." thing but the swervy bus that stopped on a dime at EVERY single stop (seriously 10 meters at a time all the way home) had me pretty sick. i crashed upon entering the place and when he got home i was unable to speak or move. pretty brutal yet just another day.
had some nightmare that he was scared of the diagnostics so i offered to lie down and demonstrate a mock-ct-scan only to find out i had breast cancer and needed surgery. people started drawing lines all over my body where they had to do the surgery (like nip/tuck) and i woke up fully appreciating how scary these medical tests and surgery can be. it's hard to put your life in someone else's hands. i just hope that i can be strong enough for both of us, amidst my own struggle with health. it's odd to have him rub my back and calm me down while im in pain when all i want to do is comfort him. more than ever i feel that together we can be tough anough to get through all of this, and am wholely glad we found each other.
we need to run away and have a secluded vacation where we cant be bothered by blinding head pain and probing medical tests. i wish sometimes we could run away from ourselves and be permitted to enjoy time together without constantly paying our 'tab' in suffering. maybe that's where the playing field gets evened...we get to be ecstatic every day of our lives together, but this is the price we pay? who knows...in any event i've never felt as though we're closer. so migraines and cancer can try all they want...im convinced we'll be fine. we have to be.
the amount of worry and love you pour into another person while they're sick leaves you no time to worry about yourself. it if anything marginalizes my pain. now i know how my parents must have felt when i was little and had migraines, leaving them helpless but worried. with huge medical burdens hanging over the two of us now, at times it's hard to keep perspective and make sense of any of it.
a few days ago with the rain-associated pressure change i had a light migraine (if there is such a thing) that went away after a few hours.
yesterday however was bad. i think it's a sleep-deprivation one from last weekend that i still have to pay for...that and waiting on my thesis draft to come back to me i'm so bored that i have the ability to oversleep. the number 1 thing you can't do and avoid a migraine. so yesterday i left the apt laden with my books i recently picked up from the library (one by david suzuki, a financial one, noam chomsky, something about marriage and some career book...all very random but by their own right interesting) and took off to bridgehead. i adore reading and it's all too sad that i'm usually too busy to, so it's great to have some time to indulge. it wasn't before long that it hit, and by the time i was on the bus home i felt pretty sick. i did the whole "maybe if i close my eyes, maybe if i focus on the horizon..." thing but the swervy bus that stopped on a dime at EVERY single stop (seriously 10 meters at a time all the way home) had me pretty sick. i crashed upon entering the place and when he got home i was unable to speak or move. pretty brutal yet just another day.
had some nightmare that he was scared of the diagnostics so i offered to lie down and demonstrate a mock-ct-scan only to find out i had breast cancer and needed surgery. people started drawing lines all over my body where they had to do the surgery (like nip/tuck) and i woke up fully appreciating how scary these medical tests and surgery can be. it's hard to put your life in someone else's hands. i just hope that i can be strong enough for both of us, amidst my own struggle with health. it's odd to have him rub my back and calm me down while im in pain when all i want to do is comfort him. more than ever i feel that together we can be tough anough to get through all of this, and am wholely glad we found each other.
we need to run away and have a secluded vacation where we cant be bothered by blinding head pain and probing medical tests. i wish sometimes we could run away from ourselves and be permitted to enjoy time together without constantly paying our 'tab' in suffering. maybe that's where the playing field gets evened...we get to be ecstatic every day of our lives together, but this is the price we pay? who knows...in any event i've never felt as though we're closer. so migraines and cancer can try all they want...im convinced we'll be fine. we have to be.
Friday, July 20, 2007
......................
worst on in awhile last night
2 baths, 3 mugs lavender tea, 1 massage, 100mg imitrex, icepacks
and a whole lot of crying.
2 baths, 3 mugs lavender tea, 1 massage, 100mg imitrex, icepacks
and a whole lot of crying.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
napping on the other side of the bed
i'm rediculously tired today. i mean, im usually exhausted on a good day but today it's so much more. i can barely stay awake and it's only mid afternoon.
oh and before i forget, they've upped my amytrip 5 mg.
connection? you be the judge.
upon telling my neurologist that the meds make me tired i get this:
neurologist: "well are you so tired you're falling asleep in the middle of talking to someone?"
me: "like narcolepsy? no. but after a 9 hr sleep i come home mid-afternoon from work to nap"
neurologist: "i'd like to up your medication"
me: "but i'm telling you. i'm unable to function due to being exhausted because of it"
neurologist: "well how about we up it. how's that?"
me: (blank stare of disbelief)
neurologist: "now how about i see you in another 3 months"
me: "well i'm getting married and moving to toronto soon. i'll probably change doctors"
neurologist: "yep. so 3 months it is then. bye"
it's not my utter frustration and over-medicated dissatisfaction with life that gets to me, it's the fact that our tax money pays these bastards. in the event that they look up once from their diagnosis-in-a-box computer screen they may actually hear a word you're saying.
maybe it's too much to ask. alas, i nap.
oh and before i forget, they've upped my amytrip 5 mg.
connection? you be the judge.
upon telling my neurologist that the meds make me tired i get this:
neurologist: "well are you so tired you're falling asleep in the middle of talking to someone?"
me: "like narcolepsy? no. but after a 9 hr sleep i come home mid-afternoon from work to nap"
neurologist: "i'd like to up your medication"
me: "but i'm telling you. i'm unable to function due to being exhausted because of it"
neurologist: "well how about we up it. how's that?"
me: (blank stare of disbelief)
neurologist: "now how about i see you in another 3 months"
me: "well i'm getting married and moving to toronto soon. i'll probably change doctors"
neurologist: "yep. so 3 months it is then. bye"
it's not my utter frustration and over-medicated dissatisfaction with life that gets to me, it's the fact that our tax money pays these bastards. in the event that they look up once from their diagnosis-in-a-box computer screen they may actually hear a word you're saying.
maybe it's too much to ask. alas, i nap.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
a little break
yesterday & today so far have been great pain-free days.
it's sometimes a blessing-in-disguise to live in chronic pain because when it's momentarily gone you feel so enriched with life.
i'm in the middle of 3 great books. i wish i could make a living reading.
it's sometimes a blessing-in-disguise to live in chronic pain because when it's momentarily gone you feel so enriched with life.
i'm in the middle of 3 great books. i wish i could make a living reading.
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