Record Breaker....

Babygirl awoke with a severe headache yesterday, and ranked it a '10' on the one-to-ten pain scale. Remembering that this child has some basis for comparison, I have to take that ranking fairly seriously.  She took her meds, went back to bed, and was still complaining of pain when I arrived home from work despite multiple doses.  She went to bed with that same headache.

This morning was another '10'.  I called the family doc and explained the situation to his nurse, asking for an appointment.  I figured maybe we could arrange the MRI that I know the neurologists are going to ask for anyway, and get a head start on things.  I mean, nothing has changed except for the extreme persistence of this headache.  She's not fond of light, but there's nothing else going on. 

The answer was a fairly resounding 'no'.  Take her to the ER, they said.  Get the pain to stop, they said.  Sigh. 

It was my once-a-month afternoon off.  I came home, and she'd had a second dose of pain meds one hour before I arrived, and ranked the headache at a 5, so off we went.  We got to the ER at 2:30, and were put into a room fairly quickly, but it was more than an hour before the nurse came in, and even longer before the doc arrived.  They gave her benedryl and phenergan IV (both antihistamines, the second commonly used for nausea, apparently the treatment du jour for headaches regardless of cause) and fluid.  They did a CT scan, the standard ER test, which I guaran-damn-tee you will say in its final report that an MRI would give more information. It was normal. They did blood work. They kept us while she slept.  Every time they woke her up she told them the headache was no better.  They let us go when I pointed out that they either needed to let us go so she could take her anti-rejection meds or they needed to give them to her. 

We got home at 8:30, she ate a little dinner (her first meal of the day), and took some pain meds and went to bed.  With the headache.  Please God that she'll awaken without one in the morning. There are records we don't want to break.

Lordy. 

DeeDee