tiny violin

Disclaimer: this is definitely one of those "woe is me" cue the world's tiniest violin posts. If this is not up your alley, then don't read below.

I blogged hardly at all in December. This was for several reasons (does the world really need yet another blogger doing a gift guide?) one of the main ones was the worst headache and neck ache of my life.

I've had migraines for years and I am not a stranger to bad headaches or ones that last more than a day, but this was like nothing that I have experienced before. After about a week and a half of pain, I made an appointment to see my doctor and got prescribed roughly 1/5 of the pharmacy and got a lovely shot of Toradol to help with the pain. I wish I could say it helped. I really, really do. But it didn't. Two weeks later, when the headache had still not gone away, I saw him again. More meds. He said if they didn't help within a few days, to just go to the ER. Insert ER visit a few days later here. They ran a head CT which came back clean (always a good thing). No answers. Just more pain. Got a lovely mixture of meds that would make Dr. Gregory House himself cry with envy.

They didn't help but they did succeed in making me high as a kite. Saw the neurologist today for more answers. Got more bloodwork. More meds (yes the Landstuhl pharmacy apparently still has things left that I haven't been prescribed yet). The doctor also suggested injections into the back of my head and neck and to help with the pain. If you know me in real life, you know that I am basically the biggest baby alive. Needles cause me to wince and shriek and all that jazz. I nearly cried when I got my ears pierced. And this should tell you just how desperate I am for relief because I actually agreed to this. I had about an hour to kill between the appointment and injections which left me with just enough time to get my blood drawn (apparently needles are the theme of the day), get a large Coke, and google the bejeezus out of these injections so I could predict the pain level involved here. All of my "research" said that I would be given two injections, the first being something to numb the area so I didn't lose my mind. Imagine my sheer delight to discover that the doctor had mixed the Lidocaine in with the other meds and it would be all with one needle. He called it a small needle. I called it a small pipe. Tomato, to-mah-to. He said that it would not hurt that bad because I have surgeries in the past. He forgot to mention that I was under general anesthesia those times and here I would be stone cold sober. What followed next was excruciating pain. Times 8. That's one for each injections. That's right. 8 of them. In a place with not much fat. All I can say is that the staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is really lucky that I don't curse because if I did, then my screams this morning would have made their morning a whole lot more colorful.

The worst part is  that the injections did not help. In fact, they made the pain worse. Now not only do I have the same neck pain and headache that I had before, and now, to add insult to injury, I have horrible pain at the injection site and it hurts to move my head at all and to sleep in certain positions. Lovely.  I started crying when I got home not because I needed to, but because I just couldn't help it. It was as if the tears were leaking out of my eyes if that makes any sense.

Now here I am frustrated, miserable, and in pain. Did I mention that this was going to be a woe is me post?