Another day, another migraine...23 Oct 2011

I had such high hopes. I volunteer at my husband's job, it's a youth center type organization. I usually only stay for a few hours, 2 at the most, but this day (last Wednesday) I was asked to stay longer. My husband, Doug, would be out doing errands for the upcoming yard sale for the transition center, and for kids (young adults too) to be in the building there needs to be two staff there, so I said that I would stay. It was about 4 that a headache started and when 5 came around and I had already taken the maximum amount of acetaminophen, I knew it was going to be a migraine. This one came slow, and by 6 I was feeling sick, lights and sounds were bothering me as well as the aura. I waited then took IB, nothing, again I waited and then hydro, still nothing. It was morning (way early for me) by the time that I could try something else so it was off to the ER, I had nothing stronger. I have yet to find something that takes all the pain away.

So I get my daughter to take me to the ER. There I sit at the intake desk, shaking, with my bed buddy (bowl) in lap to throw up into if needs be again, in serious pain, with sunglasses on (even though the sun had not come up, the lights in the ER kills - fluorescents) and I can barely sign my name. I tell them what I took and know what the reaction is going to be when I say Hydro, and it was. I have no medical insurance, no company wants me on their plan that I could ever afford. So I am looked at as some junky who needs a fix. I have mix match PJs on, my hair unbrushed, did not have any sleep the night before, curled up as little as I could. Then there is my daughter who does not look the bit concerned that I look so bad, like this is a normal for me. I get the tell all questions, "what do I normally get when in this condition." I answer Imatrex works sometimes. All of a sudden the demeanor of both the nurses changes to concern, I do have a migraine. I wanted to say Oxycontin or Vicaden, but I am in too much pain to care if they do think that I am some junkie, I want the pain to just go away, I want to stop shaking, to stop throwing up. If they would have gave me the option of nothing or something to put me out of my misery, I would have taken the latter, just stop the pain!

So I get the first shot and it just takes the pain down a few notches. I absolutely HATE needles, but accept the second shot, of what? I did not care to ask, just shoot me! So this second shot about knocks me out, it's difficult to even keep my eyes open. I can still feel the pain, but hope that if it puts me to sleep then I will not feel anything. It makes me completely sick and trying to get up and walk out I stumble to the wall then back to a chair and loose what ever acids I had left in my stomach. We called for a wheelchair and I was helped into the back seat (laying down) for my trip to the pharmacy. My daughter who sees me sick often just opens the back door then goes to the driver's side, even when I was falling to the floor she just looked at me, as if to say mom, get up we are supposed to go. I think when others are not sick all the time they forget what it is like to not feel good and that would be my children (and Doug). I have been sick so often and still push through and do things, when I get to the point that I cannot they just wait a day or two then I'm pushing back through the pain. It is something I discuss with Doug often, but he does not have a bedside manner, he's not by the bed but out doing something with the kids, leaving me alone. Sure I push through a lot of pain, but there are times when I cannot push any further and would appreciate them to jump in and help, even if it's not toward me but to the house. My children (2; girl and boy - teenagers!) get sick maybe once a year (if that), and their sick has always been a touch of sickness. They do not feel good, they might have stuffy noses, and possibly a low fever, but neither of them have ever been sick sick. Just as I was as a child, they have gotten nothing, I think that my daughter did actually throw up once, my son maybe too but I cannot recall, that's how often they are sick, and at 17 and 15 I don't see it changing much. Doug also get sick maybe twice a year. With me it's a weekly thing. If something hasn't hit me in a week I am lucky.

So, unfortunately the pharmacies in the area do not open for another hour and my daughter wants to get off to work. I feel bad that she had to call and tell them she would be late taking me to the ER, so she drops me off at the house without meds and off to her work she goes. Doug has already left and my son's off to school, I am alone. I sleep for about 4 hours then am woken up by that migraine, the meds wore off. In my attempt to not be a "burden" I thought I just might have an old prescription that would help until someone gets back to get my prescription filled. I fumble though the mounds of bottles of meds that I don't ever toss out (you never know when you might need one), but only find suppositories for  nausea, but nothing for the pain. I call Doug who is "busy" but says that he'll be home in a little while to get them for me. Four hours later he hands me substitutions for what was written for me. I am so angry. When I get substitutions and not just generics they usually do not work, but I am in pain and take them. I fall back asleep to be up again in a little over 5 hours and with the pain, this goes on and on for two days. Finally on Saturday morning I awake to a mild headache that I can bare to take just IB.

I had paid to have a booth to sell jewelry at the local festival Yamboree, but I paid for Saturday and I still have a headache. I actually think about just suffering through it and do the 10 hours there so that I can bring in a little money to the house. I take a shower, part standing up, the rest on the bottom of the shower floor, then get somewhat dressed and look at myself in the mirror. The black circles around my eyes make it appear that I have black eyes, something I can deal with, with more makeup, but it dawns on me there will be people who smoke there, I cannot handle smoke - it causes headaches at the least and I already had one. I had to just accept that I could not do the sale and that I would just loose out on the deposit. I hate it. I had the whole week planned. There I would volunteer a few hours (only 2) at Doug's work, then the next two days help out the center with it's yard sale, then off on Saturday to 10 hours in a booth next to a friend of mine, talking and selling and just being "normal." One little over step and I am out for the next four days.

I had my first meal since Wednesday's lunch, it was 1/4 cup mild chicken rice, and four grapes. I do not call the crackers that I take with medications to make sure they stay down a meal, since they are mini crackers and I get about 1 1/2 regular ones down before my stomach begins to hurt. I am off to the bathroom about 15 times before lunch, and it isn't pleasant. I am so hungry that my mind just wonders over things that it would like to have. They are not sweets, no, vegetable soup, potatoes and gravy, steamed broccoli, oh I need to stop. But I know that it would just be painful to eat, and since the acid took my taste buds away for awhile everything tastes off and bitter.

On top of all of this we are having problems with our 15 year old son, anger issues. He does not want to do anything around the house, does not want to attend any church functions and says that I am just "faking it." I have never cared that anyone in my life thought I was faking it, just annoyed by their stupidity, but this is different. All that I do for him, all that I do for the family, and I'm "faking it?" Just because most of the conditions are internal where some do not even produce understandable pain to many (depression), he sees me as faking it. I have worked years, dealt with the VA (that alone should have been enough) so that I could get the 100% percent service connection that I have suffered with years before it was awarded, with all the check ups and the C&Ps that I must go to to keep the status, with all the paperwork, the years fighting in appeals, trying to get some VA doctor to state what was wrong, knowing some of the most vital military medical records never made it back to my base from my deployment site ("they are lost"), trying to prove injuries that I sustained, fighting over just the wording of one doctor's opinion to another, keeping it together as much as I possible could, to get the 100% to keep the 100% for who? Really for my family. So that my family can have medical coverage, because we could not even begin to afford coverage for just me with the conditions given to me by the military. So that my children can have a little boost in college and when I die that a little bit of money will still go to my children until a certain age, and to my husband unless he marries again.

I pushed forward with my education to a Ph.D. and with the skills that I have should be pulling down a good $100,000 a year at least job, but I get only $3000 and something (extra for dependents). That I feel as though I am not pulling my weight because not only can I be counted on to hold a job, but even to be functioning that day. The year before I was awarded my 100%, I was working at a starting position making $2500 plus perks a month, that was over 11 years ago. My husband has not been able to take certain job positions because it did not give the freedom that he needs when the children were younger and someone needed to take care of them being I could not that day, as well as someone taking care of me. I know it has been difficult for him, but how do you think I feel? The one who feels as though at times I am just a burden to this family, and at the same time feel taken advantage of by the same people, that I am not faking this, I really wish that I was, then I could just say "sorry I faked it" and moved on, moved onto a life that there was such possibilities for when I was 17 (when I joined the Air Force). If I knew then what I do now, I would not have enlisted. Most of the painful debilitating conditions are not from some foreign enemy, no that shot healed, no it was from the very people who said they had my back, who I trusted with my life, and my life they tried to take, leaving just a shell after.