“The Most Painful Moments Can Also be the Scariest”

For the last month I’ve been getting headaches, usually when starting my new excercise routine-they come on within seconds of doing just 2-3 deep squats…and without any warning. BAM!  

It feels like my head wants to explode, like a vessel is about to burst, or like my brain is swelling up and about to break free from my skull at any moment-if only it could break thru my skull.  It’s a pounding across my entire forehead, and it does not go away.  It’s intense and painful thru the remainder of the night, then the following day it feels like a bad caffeine headache, one you can ignore with a few advil but one that lingers waiting to break back into my life at any moment.

So when it happened again on Monday, I would’ve done what I normally do, accept that now I get headaches.  i would’ve gone home and taken some tylenol pm and hoped to sleep it off.  Except this particular one would be described at the WORST HEADACHE OF MY LIFE…in fact, the WORST PAIN OF MY LIFE!

Lucky for me, I have a smart cautious boyfriend that does not approve of my bullheaded stubborn ways.  He made me an appointment to see my doctor, and that was last night that I saw her.  The headache was still looming since Monday at 7:30pm.  I sat in her chair and began to tell her symptoms.  The talking and conversation must’ve been too much which is odd since I excel at this behavior in everyday life…within a few minutes I had to ask for water and tell her I couldn’t talk anymore.  I just started to shake and cry and rub my head furiously to make the pounding subside…it only got worse. 

Long story short, my blood pressure was skyrocketing, I personally felt my body shutting down.  I would not have been surprised if my body would’ve called it quits all together.  And next thing I know she is not playing around…she calls an ambulance and I was whisked away to NYU’s emergency room.

This next 7 hours was the most painful, and by far the most scary thing ever, scarier than a Freddy Kruger movie when I was 5yrs old!

I sat in pain, as the advil the first doctor gave me didnt work.  Then the 2nd doctor gave me tylenol, that did not work either…hours later I’m admitted for what would be my first cat scan (this being after I had a hard time rememebering such simple info like my DOB and SSN, and not being able to speak because it hurt too much, and finding that the BF said I had been slurring my speech.  Not to mention I could barely write, I think my penmanship looked like a 4 yr old’s).  Ok, so i go in, freezing and shaking as if my body is on an ice block, and the pain is so great I can’t really concentrate, but hearing that they’re testing for a brain tumor is not anything a person with a severe headache needs on their plate at that very moment.

Of course, my mind, just hurting to think, starts reeling from ideas of what I would tell my parents, how they would handle it, me crying because I can’t stand to face them with that news, and me crying because my damn head hurts so bad.  

I go back to my seat…by this time i’ve been there nearly 3.5hrs and they’re still too overwhelmed with patients that I cannot get a bed, and I have to sit in an uncomfortable plastic beach like chair STILL!

To make light of the situation, and in hopes to calm both my boyfriend (who gets the award for best BF ever!)and myself I start thinking of all the great wigs I could wear and the headscarves I could fashion upon my bald head if it were to go that route.  I know myself…i’d roll with the punches and make the best of the situation.  Luckily, an hour later they come to me to tell me that is NOT the situation…PHEW!  But now, they want to do a 2nd CT Scan in case there’s an aneurysm…SAY WHAT???

Let me just tell you…I finally had gotten to a bed, got an IV hooked up, and lots of liquids pumped into me…so by the time I had to go to my 2nd CT scan I was in desperate need of a bathroom.  But being hooked to the IV I figured i would wait till they unhooked me after the second CT.  I couldn’t help but silently freak when they told me they were going to pump a dye into my system which would take over my body feeling like a hot sensation, and then he told me when it reached my lower region it was going to feel like I peed in my  pants.  SHIT!!!!  All I could think was “crap, actually I probably am going to pee in my pants, and this will probably only stimulate it”.

So when that was over, odd feeling for sure—but it actually warmed me up because I was still feeling like I was a dead ice corpse, I timidly got up only expecting to find a puddle of my own urine below me (um i’ve been known to pee in my pants over laughter, so something like this for sure is going to make it happen, right?)  But much to my surprise I had NOT peed the “bed”.  Phew!  So I went and took care of that nonsense before being hooked back up.

I go back to the bed, again overwhelmed with worry about the new test result, and again talking not only to ignore my pain, but to try to make light of the situation and take our minds off everything.  In fact I believe I was talking about upcoming vacations and the video game conference in N. Carolina (yeah, as if after this ambulance bill i’m going to have any money to go anywhere…ugh don’t even want to think about that!)…ha because i could really go for another vacay right about now, even though I just got back from a mini one.

Well folks…the 2nd CT came back fine too.  and they believe it to be just an extreme migraine.  Sorry though, I have never had migraines before and this does NOT fit the symptoms, only like 1/3 of the symptoms—which are also the 1/3 that match all the other forms of massive head issues.

They pumped me with some steroids to help with the pain that wasn’t going away and then sent me on my merry way.

Don’t think they didn’t also mention things like spinal taps (which menegitis could be a possibility), and my now upcoming appointment to see a neurologist to check for brain swelling (which is physically what it feels like if I had to describe it any other way…it feels like my head is too small for my brain quite frankly).

It’s just odd how you never think you’ll be in these situations.  Thankfully it seems mine are not nearly as serious as these tests they threw my way…but still one never expects to find themselves at the height of their life’s health, only to wind up at a doctor’s office talking about a chronic headache, and then to find themselves in something that you’d see on one of those medical dramas.  (but if that were the case, then I would’ve had George Clooney as my dr. in the early episodes of ER, and to add to ratings, I probably would’ve been diagnosed with something horrible).  Truly though, I have never been thru anything more terrifying.  Never in an ambulance, never even in an ER…not something I care to repeat.

And now I guess I have to lie low with my new fitness routine…so much for that year long contract I just signed for my trainer, eh?  Really, can I throw anymore money down the drain on this headache issue???

I hate money! and I hate this head thing! I want a permanent vacation from life and i’m completely down for going Settler of Catan style and bartering my way thru life, rather than using monitary value.

In the end though kids…do not ignore silly things you think are nothing.  While mine could very well just be a migraine, it still feels much bigger than “nothing” and it was a good thing I went to get it all checked out.