My-graine

After ten years of wondering what the heck is wrong with my liver, I will be getting a biopsy done this Wednesday. While I wouldn’t say that I’m looking forward to it (especially not after the Q&A I went through this morning which included the question, “Do you have a religion of preference?” Err…), I am glad to finally have a doctor who thinks it’s in my best interest to make sure my liver isn’t diseased in some manner not identifiable through ultrasound and blood tests. So, I’m pretty OK with whatever I’ve got to do in order to get this process over with. When I made the appointment last week, the clinician said to me, “No blood thinners up to five days before the procedure and no food or drink, including water, after midnight the night before.” Okay. I can do that. I mean, it kinda sucked that I went to a party on Saturday night and didn't drink a drop of the champagne I brought, but whatever. It's not like I'm an alcoholic who has to the bend the elbow. So, no problem, right? Wrong. Especially wrong when California gets a shift in weather.

My east coast family and friends don’t feel pity for me when I complain about the California weather. Afterall, isn’t it better for it to be warm than cold? Not exactly. Especially when you don’t have air conditioning in your apartment. Most people in California will tell you that the temperature is mild enough that AC is not really needed. But then you go through a brutal weekend when it’s 90+ degrees in April, and all one can do is think, “I won’t make it to October.” As I’m always hot (my first complex sentence seems to have been “Mommy, I sweaty”), I cannot abide the extreme heat and my body responds accordingly. In the case of this weekend, I got a headache. But, no blood thinners, so no aspirin. It started on Saturday night as a sort of low-grade ache on the brain. I figured if I went to sleep and the air cooled off, I would probably feel better the next morning. But I was wrong. I awoke with the same low-grade headache. Right away, I ran next door to 7-Elven and bought a very large cup of coffee. Caffeine goes a long way in opening up blood vessels. The headache, however, persisted. I took a temperate shower to lower my body temperature. I drank a lot of water in case I was dehydrated. I took a two-hour nap. I wore my eyeglasses until 11AM, before putting in my contacts so I wouldn’t have eye strain. I ate regardless that I wasn’t hungry (the only good thing about extreme heat is that it takes away my appetite). Finally, I headed off for the gym. Exercise not only opens up the blood vessels, but relaxes tense muscles and often releases endorphins. And still the headache persisted. I went home, took out my contacts and watched a movie. As the clock inched toward 9:30, the headache decided to take a turn for the worst and I knew that without a doubt I was now in the gripes of a migraine.

If you’ve never had a migraine, there is no way on God’s green earth that I can explain it to you. You literally want to bore your eyes out. Something, anything, to stop the throbbing in your head. My neck muscles feel all tense; my sinuses start to close; I can’t keep my eyes open. I want to bang my head against a hard surface. And even though I’m exhausted I can’t sleep. I’m in too much pain to sleep. I kept changing position – on my bed, on the floor, on the futon – until finally, the nausea started and like a drunk on payday, I found myself standing over the toilet bowl, my brow mashed against the seat praying to God for salvation while alternately wondering if it was possible to sleep like this. By 11:15, I couldn’t take it any more. I told myself that I didn’t care, that I would reschedule the g.d. biopsy, but there was no way that I was going to go through a night like this. Unfortunately, there was only one aspirin tablet in the medicine chest. I wanted to cry. I stumbled into my living room, pulled back on my clothes and like the desperate woman that I was shuffled to the 7-Elven for some ibuprofen. I swallowed four tablets and lay on the floor in front of the fan. After about fifteen minutes, the pills worked their magic and I was able to crawl into bed and sleep. I woke up this morning and felt relief. And some worry. While the migraine was gone, I was still a little stiff in the neck.

I got to work and called St. John’s to reschedule. They, however, didn’t want me to reschedule. After much talk between nurses and doctors, it was decided that I could still come in on Wednesday. Which is great, right? Yeah! Except, well, I’m already feeling the neck muscles tensing and the band across my forehead tighten. It’s currently 97-degrees. However, I’m sitting in air conditioning, so I’m hoping this is entirely psychosomatic. I’m hoping that when I go to therapy tonight and get hypnotized, he’ll be able to talk me off the ledge.

What I’ve learned from this experience is this: I’m not good under pain. I kept thinking about DD who suffered through migraines while pregnant and couldn’t take any medication. She said that her migraines would last days. I thought of my friend’s father who is a migraine test subject for radical treatments since his migraines are off the charts. I thought of John McCain in a POW camp being beaten and tortured until he finally relented and said whatever his tormenters wanted him to say. I came to the full realization that while I’d like to think that I could find that Zen state and forebear, I’m more than likely the girl who would say, “Whatever you want! Just make it stop or kill me!”