Good News

My brain isn’t going to blow up. There isn’t an aneurysm. Whatever there was on imaging looked like a possible aneurysm, but wasn’t. It’s a normal variation. Something about the resolution on the MRA not being good enough to see the tail at the end of the bulge. It’s called an infundibulum. Here is the webpage the doctor showed me to explain the difference.

Long story short… There’s nothing wrong with the physical structure of my brain. Nothing is going to explode. And I don’t have to go back and see the neurosurgeon.

As for the way I was told about the “aneurysm”, well, I’m thinking of having a conversation with a scheduling supervisor. It seems like that isn’t something a scheduler should be telling a patient about.

Trying to Stay Off of Dr. Google

So about a month ago, I saw a headache specialist because of recent uptick in migraines. It had actually been going on since the spring, but every time I thought about seeing someone, the headaches dropped off. But long about September, they were going strong and I was missing work.

The specialist ended up putting me on a preventative (Ajovy) and ordering an MRI and MRA (an angiogram). I finally got the scans done on Tuesday. This morning he calls before my alarm goes off and tells me I need to see a neurosurgeon because of “findings”. He didn’t say what they were. Ugh. When I talked to the scheduling person, she asked if it was for the aneurysm. I said that I guessed so because the specialist didn’t say. I managed to get an appointment for Monday morning, so at least I only have a few days to wait. The headache guy did say it wasn’t an emergency and that I didn’t need to go to the hospital right then and there. Part of me wishes it were because then I’d find out instead of having to wait.

I tried to read the report in my EMR. Usually a bit of Googling helps me understand things. Not so this time. I don’t speak radiology-ese.

So now I’m just going to hang out and try to keep my mind off all of this stuff. Thank goodness for Klonopin. I have some that my shrink prescribed for medical procedures. I plan on using it to help keep the anxiety at bay.

Yeah

I’m pretty proud of myself.  After struggling last weekend to upgrade my desktop and failing (and subsequently purchasing a Mac Mini I had my computer guy swap the hard drives from my failed media center to my desktop.  Oh yeah, my working hypothesis was the hard drive in my desktop was basically on it death bed.

So this weekend I decided to futz around with the media center.  I had an external drive ready to back up the data on it.  I try to boot it and it seems like it’s booting, but no video signal.  I (on my own, sans Google) managed to pull out the video card and RAM, blow out all the dust (oh was it bad) and reassemble everything.  One last try and I got the happy blue light on my monitor.  BINGO!  I don’t know what worked.  I learned a hell of  lot though.  And the inside of computers aren’t as scary as I thought they were.  It’s kind of like the revelation I went through when I started learning Linux and found out the command line isn’t anything to be scared of.

 

As an update.  Yes, I’m still in pain.  Migraine is sucking and I’ve maxed out on the medicine.  All I can do is nibble on crackers and drink water because anything heavier comes right up.   Yes, I was so hungry this morning, I made the mistake of eating left over pizza from before my trip.  Bad idea.  I’m popping motrin every 6 hours and moaning in bed like a wimp.   Good thing I can’t eat because there isn’t any food in the house.  Tomorrow is a holiday.  So at least I don’t have to go to work.

Dear Body

Sorry about that trip today.  You walked all the way to find out it wasn’t a hotel, but a sauna.  Oh well.  I hope you don’t mind I skipped the public shower part.  I know you weren’t really happy with the sleeping arrangements.  I don’t like the floor either.  Your poor brain couldn’t handle the coffin like aspect of the sleeping room.  I know the chair wasn’t much better.  We were lucky that the nice man took us to the “resting room”.  Still the floor, but open.  Who would want to sleep in a 5 x 3 x 3 box is obviously a very strange person.

Yeah, so sorry about the lack of sleep.  Hips, I know you were really miserable.  That’s why I got us out of there.  Body, you did a good job on the trek back to Seoul Station.  I know, I should have booked and earlier train home.  Hell, I should have booked the first train possible and just got us the hell out of there.  If we ever go to Itaewon again, we’ll go in the morning, not the night before.  Seoul Station needs to make it easier to figure the hell out.  I don’t know how far we walked to finally find a subway station.  The best part, is we were 3 stops (well, 1 stop on one train and 2 stops on another) from Itaewon.

And the food.  I know I’ve been feeding you better food.  I promise not to give you fast food (even if it is Taco Bell) three times a day.  I know that last coffee pushed you over the edge from baby migraine to MIGRAINE FROM HELL.  Sorry that we had to spend like 4 hours at Seoul Station basically sitting on the steps.  They need to put some benches down by the tracks or something.  There isn’t enough seating in that place.  At least the train was comfortable.

Oh and that last cab driver.  I wish they would ban manuals in cabs.  Tummy, you weren’t doing to good to begin with.  The trip home was hard.  I know we were all glad to see our bed.  Not so glad to see the cat puke.  Tummy, you did a good job not losing it while it was being cleaned up.

All in all, knees, ankles, hips and the rest of you.  Good job.  I hope you enjoy your rest tonight and tomorrow.

Sincerely,

KatM (your stupid human)

7; 10; 200

Migraine pain: 7/10

Migraine nausea: 10/10

Total calories consumed today: ~200

Migraine from hell doesn’t even begin to describe it.  My migraines have 2 triggers, hormones and stress.  I combat the hormonal issues by taking monophasic birth control continuously.  I go off for a week when the spotting gets too annoying.  Guess what time it is?  Yup.  My off week.  This week at work seems to have been more stressful than usual.  The week didn’t start off well with the panic attack stuff at the p-doc.  Sleep?  Ha.  I “sleep” but I thrash around all night and have such horrible nightmares I don’t even want to think about them.  So yeah, stress levels through the roof this week.

Add migraine nausea with the usual nausea I have with no appetite…  well, I managed to drink the bottle of apple juice my coworker gave me.  My boss bought one of our classes (we teach it together) ice-cream and wanted to get me some.  I refused.

I’d bet I’ve burned more than 200 calories today between walking to work and teaching.  And my basic bodily functions too.  I’m trying to make sure I stay hydrated.  I’m on the computer only long enough to type this.  Although the meds Dr. P gave me really helped the nausea (it’s down to my usual baseline levels) it didn’t really knock out the headache.  I did help, I’d say it’s down to about a 3/10.

I promise to try to get some real calories into my body tomorrow.  I’ve got to go for PT again.  The cherry blossoms are out so I might go tomorrow evening to the festival and take some pictures.  I don’t know.  All I know right now is I want to sleep.

I Love My Job…

…No, really, I do.

But there are points where I want to kill every last one of my coworkers, all the students and every mother in the city.  Oh yeah, the fathers too if they get in the way.

Why, you ask?  I’m borderline (heh, that too) exhausted.  I’ve been living in migraine city for the last couple weeks.  People are acting beyond crazy at school.  We have an open house coming up and everyone, including the students, is stressed out.  I have a student who is about 6 and I asked her if she was OK today.  I asked if she was sad or tired or angry.  H just answered “No teacher”.  I finally asked if she was worried about something.  She nodded and looked down at some of the open house material that she had to learn.  So I said “H, are you worried about open house?” and she just nodded.  I mean seriously, it can’t be healthy for a 6 year old to be that stressed out about school.

And to make things more fun, I have one of two extremely annoying songs going through my head almost constantly.  There’s “Telly’s Lunch” and “The Butterfly Song“.  I want to shoot myself in the head every time I press play on my mp3 player.

Open house is coming up in about 2 weeks.  And the kids literally have like 6 pages of material plus two songs to learn before then.  No wonder poor little H is stressed out of her mind.  I’d be stressed too.  The youngest kids are barely 4.  Sometimes I think the educational system in this country is nuts.  Not that the US system is any better.

I’m so tired because I haven’t been sleeping.  I’m so tired, I can’t sleep.  I just lay on the bed curled up in a fetal position and rock back and forth.  It’s the burning eye, sore muscle, stomachache kind of exhaustion.  Banging my head on the desk would probably be a blessed relief, but I’m not going to do that.  I know cutting would bring a whole lot of, albeit temporary, relief.  But I’m not going to do that.  It won’t solve any problems.  Honestly, because it’s getting to be warm, it would cause a whole lot of extra problems.  So yeah, I’m not going to go down that road.

I’m also trying to get stuff for portfolios ready.  Even though we have about 6 weeks to do them, I feel like I’m really behind.  Approximately 10 pieces of work to do and grade * 9 classes * approximately 13 students/class + report cards for all those kids + an additional class worth of report cards.  Yeah.  You can see why 6 weeks doesn’t seem all that long.

I also had to make up packets of work for 4 different classes today.  I have at least 1 more packet to put together in the next week or so.  I haven’t had a proper lunch all week.  I’ve basically been working 9-6 straight through.

Yes, I’m an idiot.  But if I didn’t get it all done, I’d stress even more.  And I’d get less sleep.  And I’d eat even less.  Yeah, I’m not doing so great on the eating front.  I don’t even want to look at food.  And the gym?  Ha! I need to renew my monthly membership.  I haven’t gone in almost 3 weeks.  Two weeks ago I was sick.  Last week, I tripped over my two big, left feet as I was getting ready and twisted the living crap out of my weaker ankle.

I need a vacation.  Big time.  So many national holidays have falled on the weekend this year.  And if the holiday is on the weekend, we don’t get any days off.  It’s not like back home where you’d get the Monday following off.

I’m tired.  I’m anxious.  I’m depressed.  I’m in pain.  That pretty much sums it up.

*sigh*

It figures

I was actually having a good time.  I mean, come on.  How often does that happen.  Let me back up.  Today we had our Kindergarten Presentations.  Awwww, the kids were so damn cute.  When I got to the Art High School, I thought I was nauseous from motion sickness.  Damn idiot cab driver.  It was pretty bad, so I took some compazine, which I had in my purse.  I thourghly enjoyed the presentations.  Did I mention the kids were really cute?  About half way through, the headache started.  Oh crap, a migraine.  And of course, you know, I had no Zomig in my purse.  I must have taken the last one last week and forgot to put a new package in.  I also thought my ibuprofin bottle was empty (which it wasn’t).  Even if I had looked, I couldn’t have gotten those big horse pills down without water.

After presentations, some of the staff decided to go out to dinner.  We ended up at a Korean BBQ place down the street from the school.  We toasted with a shot of soju (I think this is where I really made the mistake).  Dinner came, we grilled up our meat.  I had some soup (spicy tofu soup, FWIW).  I had a little piece of grilled octopus.  This whole time, my headache was starting to go away from the 800mg of ibuprofin I popped and the nausea had died down from the compazine.

All of a sudden, I thought I was going to lose the little bit of food that I had eaten.  I ran to the bathroom.  It was disgusting.  But at least it wasn’t the hole in the ground toilet, it was a real western one.  The smell was so bad I ran right back out.  I gave a coworker some money and told her I was leaving.

I then ran home and proceded to puke.  Then I took a Zomig.  Now I’m waiting for the nausea and the headache, both that got worse from throwing up to subside.  I’m throwing my clothes on the floor.  I’ll deal with them tomorrow.  I’m going to climb into bed and put a pillow over my head to block out the light that comes in.

It totally sucks because I was actually having a good time.  I wasn’t stressing about this, that, or the other thing.  My mood was actually normal.  It almost feels like I can’t win.  The old thoughts of not deserving to be happy because I’m a bad person came flooding back.

Oh well.

*sigh*