Just when I thought it wasn’t possible to feel any worse than I have these last few weeks, I woke up this morning and the pain is at an all-time new high for INSANITY.

You know those pain scales every doctor’s office has posted with idiotic faces? There is no logical way to say “Oh, I’m at an eight.” when in fact you’re at a fifty for your own personal pain threshold. We’re all drastically different. What I do on days when my pain is at a ten are things that would kill the everyday, average person. The pain scale is one of the most inaccurate things I’ve ever witnessed in life. It’s also unfair to those who suffer daily. It tells you that a ten is “The worst pain you’ve ever experienced in life”. That’s most days for me, it’s not “on occasion”. A five or six would be my every day baseline according to that chart, but as I stated, it is inaccurate. I have no choice but to function at 50-85% pain every day of my life. Give me a chart for that! 😦

There are pains we’re warned about in life, at least as women. Menstrual cramps, childbirth, toothaches, ear infections, sinus pain & pressure, a burst appendix, gallbladder pain, post-surgical pain, broken bones, etc., but nothing in life quite prepares you for a searing migraine that will not go away OR the physical body pain that has decided to accompany it, courtesy of Fibromyalgia. My arms, legs, every muscle, joint, tendon, and perhaps things I may have missed are on fire. This comes from a ravishing creature who sat through four tattoos and didn’t bat an eyelash. That felt GOOD compared to what I am currently experiencing, and yes, I paid for that “luxury”.

My main task yesterday was showering, getting dressed, and getting my butt to Urgent Care. This sounds SO easy. Have you ever tried showering when half of your body doesn’t want to move or work properly? It makes it a very tedious task, indeed. I pushed through though, after a short nap (When you’re an adult who needs naps, it’s not the kindergarten kind of nap one dreams of. It’s the nap where you’re desperately trying to rest and your cell phone genuinely needs to be tossed out a window, except you need the damn alarm on it, on the off-chance you over-sleep.). I had reserved a time slot on their website on Thursday, and that had been a very smart idea because when I arrived, they took me quickly.

So, how do I feel today? STUPID. I will never go to Urgent Care again for a migraine. I asked them in advance if they handled severe migraines and they said yes, but this is clearly more suited to the emergency room. It’s technically NOT an emergency, but it IS when you need access to the medications an ER can provide that a walk-in clinic doesn’t have on hand. Sad, but true.

I was treated perfectly fine, they were very caring and kind, but after I got home, the anti-nausea meds I’d been given in the IV, along with Toradol, proved they were not only ineffective, but I am clearly allergic to one or both of them. I took a second dose of the anti-nausea medicine (normally given only to cancer patients) before bed and I am paying for it this morning. I’m nauseous AND my stomach is on fire, which makes me wonder if my ulcer has returned. I had one years ago and it took a long time before it healed (I was warned that with too much stress, it would return) and I could stop taking medicine for it, but that is pain you NEVER forget when you’ve live with it for years on end.

I have had ZERO pain relief. This means calling my doctor on Monday and making an appointment because I can’t get through a month of this until I see my new neurologist. If it is indeed my ulcer, I can go back on probiotics or OTC Nexium until I can see someone, but it is CRAZY to suffer like this.

The worst part in all of this is that I do NOT want to get out of bed. Technically, I already am (Kitten was crazy aggressive this morning because I was late getting home to feed them. She thought breakfast time was the second my head lifted off the pillow!), but my point is, I want quality rest, not six fitful hours of torture vaguely masked as “sleep”. And for the past few days, more than once, I have wondered how much stress factors into how I am currently feeling and what I am going through.

Stress can cause so much damage, and oftentimes, we don’t consider it as a factor in our health issues. I can’t remember which doctor asked if I was under a lot of stress (I believe it was my neurologist, though. It was a long time ago.), but I do remember saying “YES!” His answer was “You need a vacation.” Gee, why didn’t I think of that?! <rolls eyes>

Wouldn’t we ALL love to go away and completely detox from the stress of our lives (Relax, I didn’t say we all had to go together!)? Yes, most of us would. Anyone who says they have zero stress in their life is lying, or a delusional billionaire.

Pain should not make you feel like you’re being eaten alive by a Komodo dragon, but sometimes, that’s exactly what you feel like. I wish I could say I was being dramatic. If anything, I’m downplaying it. 😦

The best part of my Urgent Care visit was the doctor saying he doesn’t think I suffer from migraines. Excuse me?! Every highly educated neurologist I’ve ever seen has declared that I do indeed suffer from migraines, but you think it’s “just tension“?! My blood pressure was through the roof; that’s not tension, that’s PAIN. Mind you, a smarter doctor would have seen fit to provide me with muscle relaxers if he thought it was “just tension“. My neck is indeed tight and sore, not to mention achy as hell, but it’s dealing with a lot and I chose not to disclose my spinal damage to him since it’s already in bold-type in my chart. A chart he couldn’t seem to read since he repeatedly asked me the same questions over and over again.

I’ve learned my lesson. Urgent Care isn’t suited to migraines. Unfortunately, a busy emergency room isn’t much help either, but if ever I am in this position again, that’s where I’m going. Under duress.

To add insult to injury, the pain medicine he prescribed couldn’t touch any of this with a ten foot pole. I took one last night in the hopes it would help, but it didn’t touch the migraine (it helped everything else temporarily). Even better, he claimed on the prescription that I asked for half the normal dose, which I did NOT. No sane pain patient would ask you to give them less pain medicine for the same price. That’s over 50 cents per pill for a medication that doesn’t even cost 10 cents to make. My insurance company should be shot for charging me full price.

I honestly just want to lie here and moan. 😦 But mostly, I am praying this horrible nausea goes away. Obviously, today is one of those days where you have no choice but to stay in bed and rest. Bleh! I hate days like this.

Wishing you all a stress-free, no-pain weekend. I hope someone had good Mexican food for me yesterday. As bad as I feel, I would murder someone for a taco!

copyright © 2017 by Lisa Marino & Blackbird Serenity, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.