Endless Artificial Energy...

Tuesday evening the right side of my head began 'tweaking.'  It wasn't really a typical headache thing, exactly, just a pinging pain above and behind my ear that came and went, sometimes with movement, sometimes for no reason.  It woke me up a handful of times before midnight. Migraine pills didn't help.  Hydrocodone knocked me out between 'pings' but I didn't sleep solid.

I worked Wednesday, and it seemed okay, or at least not intrusive. Wednesday evening?  More of the same.  By the time I was done with work on Thursday I was exhausted, and the 'pinging' started as soon as I got home.  I'm not a crier, but I cried, which scared my hubby a bit.  I gave up on the pills and tried a glass of white wine (reds can make it worse).  I slept a bit at first, but my Fitbit testifies to a bad night.

I got up Friday morning already exhausted, took the dogs for a walk and got ready to go to Physical Therapy (oh, that?  My left shoulder's a bit torn up for no apparent reason.  I'm hoping PT will help me dodge the surgery bullet) when some bastard hit the right side of my head with a baseball bat.  (If I EVER catch that invisible so-and-so....!)

I took three Tylenol and some sumatriptan, and logged on to the Emergency Room's pre-registration site.  I figured I'd have more than enough time to do my PT before they'd be able to see me.  (I was right. I arrived 20 minutes late and still waited a couple of hours.  Of course, there were three codes called while I was there.  I have some kind of bad ER karma.)

IV Benadryl, Reglan, and 2 liters of saline.  Percocet and prednisone.  I came home, took more sumatriptan and another hydrocodone and passed out on the couch for about 6 hours, woke up for about 4 hours, took more  prednisone and Benadryl and went to bed.

This morning I awoke at 5:30 AM with a fully functioning brain for the first time in what felt like ages.  I walked the dogs three miles.  We went to the farmer's market and the grocery store. I've done 5 loads of laundry and 2 loads in the dishwasher. Two bathrooms are toothbrush-to-the-grout clean.  The rest of the house is dusted and mopped.  Babygirl and I made halupki for the first time. I hit 10,000 steps on my Fitbit for the first time this year by 3 PM.  Oh, and I read a book.

And we haven't eaten dinner yet.

I freaking love prednisone.  It's almost worth the inevitable crash.

DeeDee

Still Afraid After All These Years.....

Babygirl and I are sitting in the waiting room in CHOP Nephrology.  We got here at 7:30 with the goal of being the first patients in the clinic, hopefully with the outcome of being the first patients OUT of the clinic.  Our appointment was originally scheduled for yesterday, but we got a call a couple of weeks ago telling us that the clinic was closed for Martin Luther King Jr day.  Could we come in a day later? 

Well.  I already had taken off from work for Monday and Tuesday so that I could get her to Nephrology on Monday and Neurology on Tuesday. And we'd been lucky enough to snag a 10 AM appointment with Neurology so we'd be able to start home before noon.  So, what's the problem?

Nephrology clinic is a morining clinic, first-come-first-served, and they've just dumped two days' worth of kids into one days' worth of clinic.  It's gonna be a madhouse.

And Neurology is in another city, 24 miles away, and if we get the best possible timing we will be negotiating the larger of those two cities at peak rush hour. 

Just shoot me.

But it's either that or travel 400 miles twice in one week in the month of January, and, lordy, given our today-it's-spring and yesterday-we-got-8"-of-unpredicted-snow type weather, THAT is something devoutly to be avoided. 

So here we are, gassed up and ready to run like lunatics to the parking garage as soon as they turn us loose.

Packing for these trips still tells me something about my interior world. 

It's been more than 4 years since the last time Babygirls was hospitalized.  It's nearly SIX years since the transplant.  It's approaching 7 years since the last time I believed I had gotten my sickest kids through their worst health crises, and that we were all good. 

I packed, for a simple overnight:  Two pairs of jammie pants, two full changes of clothing, a spare sports bra, a pair of sandals (because you need something quick to put on your feet if you're running for coffee at 2 AM in the hospital.....). Wait. Whoa.

We did Babygirl's blood work LAST WEEK here at home, and I'm assuming that if there was a crisis brewing somebody would have called us and made us come in. 

But I can't overcome it:  The superstitious belief that if I am Just Prepared Enough that everything will be okay, that Babygirl herself will be Okay, when I know that ship sailed and sank in April of 2011.                                                                                                                                                                     
I really need to grow up.  Babygirl certainly has.

DeeDee