Duchess of Evil

As most of you probably know, I suffer from migraines. Mine are caused by tension I carry in my neck and shoulders. Regular massage helps, but is expensive, so I don't get it nearly as often as I should. Usually, they strike in the middle of the night for me. On the rare times when they happen during the day, if I feel one coming on I can take some Migraine Advil and head it off before it gets bad. But by the time the pain is bad enough to wake me, it's too late for that, and it usually means I'm up half the night with it, and by the time if finally fades to manageable levels in the morning, I have to be headed to work.

They've been more frequent since I started working. Two or three a week is no longer unusual. Once, I tried to come in even though it hadn't receded yet, and I ended up puking in the bathroom at work and telling my boss I had to go home. I think it's all of the time I'm spending on the computer every day, sitting at a desk that could probably be more ergonomic, and my body isn't used to it. It's also probably time for me to get a massage.

Added to that, I've often found over the years that a sudden increase in migraines means it's time for me to replace my pillow. This time, though, I've wondered if it wasn't time to replace my whole bed. The mattress is a pillow top more than 20 years old, with a ten year old memory foam topper we've been using that used to be awesome but lately has been kind of less so. It keeps moving around, resulting in a gap at the top of the bed where our heads rest, so my pillow sits all cock-eyed and probably isn't doing nearly a good enough job supporting my head and neck.

So, when a great deal came up on a really high quality memory foam mattress, I jumped all over it. And to be fair, I certainly haven't had any back aches or anything since we switched it out. However, every single night has resulted in a migraine. Three in a row. I cannot keep going like this, not now that I'm working full time. Desperate, I started researching pillows. Mine was older, the foam clearly kind of broken down in it (it had been a cheaper memory foam option many months before) and perhaps it just didn't offer me enough support with the new, more firm memory foam mattress. I've tried so many - down pillows, expensive memory foam, the funny shaped ones and so on - and they all kind of work for me, in the sense that I do get fewer migraines for awhile, but none were anything I would call really great.

Then, I found a review online from someone else who suffers from migraines, of one of these technogel pillows. At first, I was skeptical. Another memory foam pillow, with the addition of a gel layer for coolness. However, I found more reviews - a LOT of them, all individual, well established bloggers with very positive things to say. And honestly, I was desperate. I just could not imagine one more night like the ones I've been having. I found a local store that carried them, and drove there after work last night to try one. I ended up coming home with it. And let me just say, even though it has only been one night - this pillow is the most awesome thing ever. Right away, when I was lying in bed reading I could feel a difference. The combination of memory foam and gel in it, however they do it, remains supportive even when the stuff is squished by my head. The coolness factor is really, really awesome. It doesn't last forever, but long enough to help relax my neck, which is super key for me. (I use ice packs on my neck when I have migraines, and they really help).

For the first night since getting the new mattress, last night I slept without pain. When I did wake up, it was to the wonderful, complete absence of pain, which is not something that I think a lot of people appreciate until they live with the other alternative. This is obviously going to take more than one night's testing for me to truly be sold on it, but for now, all I can say is this pillow was worth every single penny.

 So, surgery, even minor surgery, is more exhausting than I ever knew.  The last three days have been a learning experience for me, to say the least.  
 
The kidney valve surgery I had when I was five is a dim memory of lying in a hospital bed for so many days, I couldn't count them at the time.  I'm sure it was awful and I spent those first days mostly sleeping, but I just don't remember some thirty *cough* years later.  

I knew going into this I'd probably feel kinda under the weather for a couple of days.  But I figured by the weekend, I'd be mostly fine.  I mean, it's just an outpatient thing.  They cut out a polyp, send me home, and it takes a day or two for the bleeding to stop.  Like my wisdom teeth, right?  Well, sort of.  They sent me home, and I've been spitting out blood ever since.  First it gushed out my nose and filled gauze pads.  Now it just drips down my throat.  Mostly.  Sure, it's slowed lots, but there are moments when I don't think I'll ever stop tasting blood, and worse, the faintly rotting taste of old blood I wake up to every morning.  Blech.  

And then there's how completely without energy I am.  I wake up.  I have brief hours wherein I feel capable of doing something like, oh, pick up dishes, or clean the cat litter box, or sit down and eat something.  Whatever I choose to do saps all that momentary strength from me, and all I want to do is sleep.  I can actually feel the world narrowing when this happens, it's the strangest sensation.  I'll start feeling light headed, and get a headache, and sometimes a low grade fever to go with, and I know I need to go take a nap.  If I don't, I just start feeling worse and worse, until I don't have a choice.  So I sleep for a couple of hours.  Rinse and repeat, until bed time.  

I have so many things I'd love to be doing.  I could be writing, or sewing.  But no.  I have neither the energy nor concentration to do either.  I drove a short ten minutes into town yesterday, and it literally exhausted me; I had to turn around and come right back home.  On Thursday, there was homework I had to do - no choice, as it was due by midnight.  Now, I not only do my homework (which I was smart enough to do during one of those brief moments of almost-energy), but I also edit discussions for a friend who is dyslexic and attending online courses.  Hers were also due Thursday, but because of appointments and things all day, she wasn't home to write hers until about 9:00pm.  By 8:30, I was light headed and ready for bed.  By 9:00, I was refreshing my e-mail every thirty seconds, mentally willing her to send the dang things.  Realize, these aren't intensive work.  It's two-four paragraphs of me making sure her words are spelled correctly and her commas are in place.  Usually it takes me less than five minutes to do both discussions for her.  By the time I got them on Thursday, I was only staying upright by sheer stubborn determination.  At 9:30, Mark came upstairs from teaching class and started just sort of chatting at me about it; he was in a good mood and just talking, the sort of thing I might half listen to on a normal night and go "Mm-hm" at appropriate intervals.  This time, I was on the last two sentences of editing my friend's work.  Mark started talking, and I literally could not read them, much less edit.  I finally just looked at him and said "Honey, I'm glad you had a great class, really.  But it is everything I can do to focus on just one thing right now.  Just one.  Please stop talking so I can finish this last sentence."  I couldn't even tune him out.  As someone who routinely does just that when in the throes of writing, it was extremely disconcerting to find myself completely unable to do so.  

Then, of course, he had to poke at me and make fun for a couple minutes before wandering away.  I was in bed going to sleep less than five minutes later.   

Tonight, I am better than that.  I couldn't have posted to LJ before, I don't think.  Not like this.  But tonight, I can, so that is a small victory.  I went over to a friend's today, and sat in a chair sipping tea for four hours.  It was an hour and a half too long.  I felt it start to hit me, but I was feeling mutinous and didn't want to go home just to return to my sick bed.  So I stayed, and ended up having to call someone as I drove myself home, so I'd be sure to keep awake and aware.  

It's only been three days, and already I am tired of this recovery nonsense.  I'm tired of not having the energy to go to the grocery store, or cook, or write, or sew, or do anything but read, watch TV, and sleep.  I am tired of spitting blood and trying not to breath through my nose, even though it's clear, and therefore natural feeling to do so.  I am apparently a grumpy convalescent.  

I think the worst part isn't not doing the things I want.  It's feeling incapable of doing them.  I don't like that at all.  

And I am starting to feel a headache coming on.  Time to go off to bed.  Again.  *sigh*   

 Well, today I go in for the surgery to get rid of my nasal polyp.  I only have one (unusual), that's large enough it's blocking both sides of my nose (unusual), and where it's connected and originates from is dangerously close to my eye and my brain (unusual).  Dangerously for the surgery, that is.  Guess I'm just lucky like that.  What that means is, the ENT doctor is taking some extra safety precautions.  An extra CT scan, and some little dooby dobby thing that costs more money, but will let him know where he is at all times within 2mm.  

I'm trying not to freak out about it all, actually.  I already have some general anxiety about "surgery" of any kind.  I'm sure some of it originates with the one I had when I was five.  (I did get a whole fleet of stuffed animals out of the deal, though.)  Now my anxiety level is all kinds of up.  The doctor, though, didn't seem overly concerned - well, he seemed concerned, but not like "you should really think about whether you want to do this".  More "to do it this way costs a little bit more, but it's what I would do if I were operating on my wife."  Okay.  We're doing that, then.

I have to be at the hospital by noon, but my surgery won't be until 1-1:30.  In the meantime, I've been fasting since midnight last night.  The no food thing is no problem.  The no water thing is killing me.  My throat is always so dry in the mornings (from having to breath through my mouth all night), and swishing water around and spitting it out isn't really helping with that.  I keep reminding myself "after this, you'll be able to breath through your nose again.  And smell stuff.  And taste better.  You won't feel as though you could suffocate to death at any moment when you get a cold."

Yep, good to keep all of that in the forefront.  I probably won't post again tonight, but tomorrow I'll post a little something, just so you all know I made it through without my eye or my brain, you know, being damaged or whatever.

 For going on three years now, I've had sinus problems.  I went my whole life with no allergy symptoms at all, ever, and then one day I thought I was catching a cold, but no....the "cold" never went away, and never moved beyond my sinuses.  At first, it was mostly a problem in the morning and at night, for mysterious reasons no one understands.  I thought "well, in the Fall it will go away".  

But it didn't.  It stayed for the whole entire year!  It stayed no matter where I traveled to on vacation (Disneyland, for instance.)  It stayed through my whole Elimination Diet, which would seem to preclude a food allergy.  In fact, allergy meds, whether over the counter or prescription strength, have literally ZERO impact.  I could be popping candy for all the good they do.  Over the past year, this issue has gradually worsened, to the point where now, every day, all day, and all damn night, I cannot breath through my nose.  Like at all.  It makes eating a fun filled activity, let me tell you.  My husband wears earplugs at night because apparently when one's sinuses are that bad, one snores.  I have tried the "neti pot" (for those who don't know, it's flushing you nasal cavities with salt water every night/day).  It doesn't really work for me.  The water barely dribbles through, if it gets through at all, and I've stood there for over half an hour multiple times, trying.  I've tried acupuncture.  Nothing, nada.  My doctor is completely mystified.  She thought perhaps I had a bacterial infection that exacerbated allergies, and gave me some antibiotics.  Nope, nothing.

I guess when she checks up there, something I can't remember the name for in my nose is very swollen and inflamed.  She gave me endless prescriptions on this nasal spray that is supposed to help with the words "use it whenever you need to".

Okay, the stuff works - kind of - for maybe a second and a half!  If I were to "use it as I need it", I'd be going through a bottle of the stuff per day.  I'm so f-ing tired of not being able to breath, of not remembering what food really tastes like, of not being able to smell anything, of not being able to f-ing breath.

Since my doctor is apparently not making the call herself, I made an appointment for this monday with an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist.  I am counting the days.  But if he takes one look and says "oh, you just have allergies", I think I might scream.