5 Years Ago Today

It seems like an eternity but it was only 5 years ago that I woke up with a headache.

January 24, 2007

Wednesday

Now, I've had headaches before and this one didn't seem too much out of the norm, but I felt like I had a cold and couldn't work, so I called in sick and headed to a dark room to spend the day. That should have been my first clue that this wasn't like any other headache I had ever had before.

Well, not any. A year before, I did have a headache one morning when the kids and I were getting ready for school {boy, just typing that seems so weird, I haven't done that in ages, or rather, exactly 5 years}, and they seemed to be talking especially loud, yelling and arguing. I don't think they were, but their voices seemed to pierce my head and I just couldn't take it. I'm sure they were just making their lunch at the time and thought my request for them to stop arguing was a little strange. That day, I ran over to Target {ah, the days when I worked right next to Target} and picked up some Excedrin Migraine. That stuff made me feel really weird. I did not like it. So, when I had another headache like that one just a year later, I really didn't want to take a full dose, so I took half.

I can't tell you how often I wondered if my woes were all because I only took half a dose...

So, Thursday came and I still had a headache. But I told my boss that I was sure I was feeling a bit better and I'd be in tomorrow. Friday, same story. No change over the weekend. Without me even knowing it, I had stopped moving. I sat in a chair from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. And I walked very slowly.

When you are out of work for 4 days, you go to the doctor. Monday, I went to the doctor. He gave me pain medication and told me to call him if the headache didn't go away in a week. It didn't but I didn't really want to bother him, because, really, it didn't hurt that much. I was beginning to suspect that it might be a migraine but I had heard such horror stories about the symptoms that I knew it couldn't be because I was not throwing up, not in extreme pain when I sat in the living room with an open window.

After 8 sick days in a row, I had to go back to work {well, I didn't have to, but I felt like I had to}. And that is when it became apparent that something bad was happening. I work part-time, 32 hours a week, but I could barely focus for my 6 hours each day. And, my head really started to do funny things. I could feel the swelling in my head. When I'd get off the computer each day, I could feel my head de-swelling. And my head hurt now. My doctor called me to follow up and recommended that I see a neurologist. If he hadn't of called, I never would have gone. I still was discounting my pain.

It was depressing when I started calling around and found out that it would take a month before I could see a neurologist. I was not going to have a headache in a month. And if I did...

I found one that would see me within a week. And that began the slow process of tests {which found nothing} before he would give me preventative medications and the slow process of me accepting the fact that I was having a migraine. I say a migraine instead of migraines because there never was an end to that very first one. It lasted for two months and didn't start to let up until we started preventative medications. The first one: nortriptyline. We started out really low: 10 mg and slowly incremented. Do you know how depressing it is when a doctor tells you to take this and come back in 3 months and we'll see how it's working?

That neurologist really didn't take my pain too seriously. There were many reasons. The first was pain wasn't my major complaint. My major complaint was a fatigue which was so debilitating I could not go into work but one day a week, the rest of the time I worked from home. If I overdid it, it would take me 2 weeks to recover my strength. It also affected how my brain processed which made it difficult to do my job. Second, I would work from home on the day of my appointments because of where his office was. I always would feel better on those days so he rarely saw me when I was at my worst. Third, I was still discounting my pain. Compared to the horror stories of migraines, this really wasn't that bad. But, I was fortunate that if I didn't move, I didn't get a headache. And my body naturally accommodated and just didn't move. But that meant I didn't live. Not a normal life, not a life at all.

But, that first neurologist did give me good advice that has helped me. He really pushed getting more sleep and helped me realize that my body needed a 9 am wake up time. Once I finally stopped getting up before 9 am, getting at least 10 hours of sleep each night, I had a major improvement in how I felt. Each time I would have an improvement like that, I would realize, "wow, I guess it really is bad".

Slowly, we incremented nortriptyline. We switched to using amitriptyline so I could sleep better. Small things made me happy. I remember when I could finally go into a restaurant and the background music wasn't too loud for me. I finally was working 3 days in the office, 2 days at home. But I could never work 2 days in a row in the office, that would be too much and it would take 2 weeks to recover.

It took an act of God, but I was able to get some of the lights turned off around me at work. Boy, did that make a huge difference. Every time a light was turned off, I felt such a sense of relief that I eventually had to admit that light did bother me.

It took me a year and a half before I felt comfortable adding massage into this mix. Why I felt afraid to add that I can't explain except to say that migraines certainly are a disease of the chemicals of the brain and I felt very paranoid in the beginning. I can't live without my massage every two weeks now. They have such a healing power, able to correct a downward spiral.

We added topimax {over this weekend trip}. I was really afraid of this medication and really freaked out that weekend, but it really helped with my fatigue and for a while, I was actually able to work 4 days in the office. That was a major miracle for me. I really started to feel like a normal human being again. I was able to walk at a normal pace.

I have come to accept my life as my new normal. Sure, I could wish for menopause which might help reset the chemistry, but I'd rather just be thankful for what health I do have and enjoy my life in the new ways that I have found.

So, now you know.