Just one moment more...

I have been battling a migraine since late morning (now officially yesterday).  The wretched thing seems very attached to me. And once again I am so very...discouraged...by both my utter inability to face this new enemy with anything other than despair and how weak I am in handling the pain, the nausea, the problem with sounds and lights and moving and thinking and anything else save for surviving just one moment more of abject misery.

I talked with Bettina some this night, shoving the agony in my head aside and maintaining a firm grip on my nausea...though...oft I thought I sounded a tad harsh or unfeeling or terse. During a vacuuming break, I rose to go to the bathroom.  That movement was enough for me to lose my grip on the nausea and all the ginger ale I had been sipping, as well as the bacon-lettuce-mustard-mayo-buttermilk toast sandwich I had for breakfast, came spewing out of me.

Throwing up while your head feels like it is ready to explode and implode all at once is not something you wish to experience.

I have a pros and cons chart for my visit to the surgeon tomorrow regarding my progress on the Loestrin.  Despite this day, I absolutely do not want to give up the combination hormone treatment. Perhaps...I might be willing to try the even lower dose of this low-dose hormone option, but it is different hormones and different probably means fighting new side effects.

Plus, the very dramatic change the hormones have wrought--completely eradicating 7 terrible symptoms that were greatly diminishing my quality of life and 1 irksome symptom--is so very remarkable to me that I am not ready to say that the three problems the medication has brought negate its value: the headaches and now migraines; the low blood sugar episodes; and its affect on how the Theophylline helps the near fainting and fainting episodes.

However, when the migraines occur, I sometimes find myself unable to see myself hanging on for just one moment more.  A little while longer until the 2nd or 3rd dose of Imitrex takes effect.  A 3rd or 4th ice pack to make waiting a bit more bearable.  The utter loneliness I feel when being engulfed in the pain that is seemingly inescapable.  The dejection I battle because I really am a mere animal at such times, sorely lacking in any shred of humanity or decency, caring for nothing more than the migraine to end.

Pain is such a funny thing.  I have had years of pain now, between multiple sclerosis and arthritis.  Nerve pain is wretched stuff, both in the variety of type and location of agony it can inflict.  However, apparently, my very high threshold of enduring pain, masking it even from others, does not count toward pain in my head.

The thing that is driving me crazy, absolutely crazy, is that this is happening mid-pack again, as if it is another ovulation migraine, the surgeon had me skip the brown pills, not have a single break between packs this time to ensure there was no chance of ovulation. If I am right as to the cause of this day's misery, then the lower dose would offer no hope of avoiding this.

I could have surgery, either an ablation to try and stop the bleeding or go straight to the hysterectomy.  However, the former may very well not work and both would not negate the need for the hormones and would most likely make all the problems I have on that side of the equation actually worse if I were to have my ovaries removed during the hysterectomy. The surgeon sees that as a last option, the poorest option.  Only migraines are not acceptable to her either.

I suppose a part of me feels, truly feels, as if I have failed by not managing to tackle the headaches before the three-month trial of Loestrin is over. To have, in fact, so spectacularly failed by moving from headache to migraine, by adding one more wretched, horrid, difficult, debilitating medical battle to my plate.

And time is running out.  I am spending so much money trying to address this issue when I have no more hope of income.  I am down to just five months more of COBRA insurance that at least lessens the financial burden of pursuing this.  Five months to find an answer.  Honestly, I cannot imagine paying for 40% of what the surgery would cost, but truly I could not do so when my cost would increase to 100%.

Five months and my only option, should there be no victory here, is to go back to being trapped in the prison of wild emotions, constant bleeding, and the other problems that made life just that much harder.

With no abatement after over twelve hours, I suppose I shall not be sleeping this night.  In less than ten hours I shall be dragging myself to the surgeon's office, most likely dizzy and nauseous and weary and in pain and beg her to find that seemingly impossible solution whereby I am not back in that prison that I fear with my whole being nor am I huddled in this new misery that binds me even more.

I suppose, given my condition, it is a good thing it is only three turns to her office....


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!