On the day after my D&C, instead of simply recovering from the simple surgery and moving on with my post-miscarriage life the best I could, I found myself in a new hell. October all but disappeared into a haze of pain, doctor’s visits, hospital visits, and vision disturbances. I couldn’t work; I couldn’t eat. Sometimes I could barely breathe. Often, I barely had the energy or presence of mind to cry. I cried in pain as the world went dim and I experienced nausea and dry heaves.

 You can watch my YouTube video (link below) or read chapter 9 below.

9. Pain

For me, October all but disappeared into a haze of pain, doctor’s visits, hospital visits, and visual-field disturbances. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t eat. Sometimes I could barely breathe. Often, I barely had the energy or presence of mind to cry. I experienced all-encompassing “head”aches and darkened vision, trips to doctors and the hospital to stop the pain and darkness, and pills. I cried in pain as the world went dim and I experienced nausea and dry heaves. I would wake up in the middle of the night to hearing whooshing in my ears and to feel my back spasming and a tremendous knot in my neck.

On Wednesday 30 September 2009, two days after my D&C, I wrote in my journal:

Today, the mother of all migraines. The meanest, ugliest,most hardcore migraine I could ever imagine. Actually, I could never imagine thismuch pain. I … woke up about every hour last night. … So I woke up around11:30 [this morning], very sore and exhausted. …

I was up for about an hour before my head started killing me again. It had been killing me when we went to bed last night, and I had been popping Tylenol every 4 or 6 hours as I woke up. … My vision was crazy, my head pounded, and I was nauseous. I thought maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten in more than 12 hours, so I asked Mike to make me some breakfast. I managed a few bites, but the nausea got worse, and movement and sound all made it worse. Finally, around 1:30 or 2, I called the doctor’s office. Dr. A isn’t in on Wednesdays, but the nurse wanted me to come in. Mike took a shower, and I used all that time to get dressed, trying to move as little as possible.

 Finally, at the doctor’s office, the nurse measured myBP and asked if these were like the migraines I’ve had before. … I told her again that if this was a migraine, it was the worst I’d ever experienced. I’d NEVER experienced such pain before. She told me that I had the look of someone with a migraine, and she asked what I’d been taking for this one. … She said Dr. A figured this was a migraine, because of the big drop in hormones. … That made sense, given that my migraines usually hit because of hormone fluctuations near my period. Dr. A had given her permission to write a script for Imitrex for me.… We filled it immediately … and went home. I took the first pill at 3 PM and was finally able to eat a package of saltines around 4. By 5, the pain was mostly gone, but the symptoms were still around, so I took another pill.

Fell asleep on the living room floor until nearly 7:30. Headache started coming back, so I took another pill at 8. So far, that’s 3 of the 4 allowed in a 24-hour period. Joy. I’m going to take the last one at 10 tonight and pray … that kicks it out … to at least tolerable levels until 3 PM tomorrow.

On Thursday, October 1, 2009, I wrote:

I slept until about 10 [this morning], so another 10-hour sleep. I awoke feeling pretty good because I hadn’t got up much in the night. … Then I got up and hated my head. Most of the pain and stiffness elsewhere in my body was gone, for which I was eternally grateful. I took two Tylenol because my head hurt every time I moved, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do more Imitrex until 3 PM, and we were hours away from there. I managed to eat some microwaveable soup and saltines, but then I thought I was going to cry. The pain got nearly unbearable around 11:30 or 12:00. I’ve never had trigger foods for migraines, but I wonder if something in the soup triggered a worse reaction, because DAMN! I took my little self into the bedroom, put on a sleeping mask, and slept until Mike came in a little after 3 PM.

I decided to do what I could without Imitrex, knowing that I have 5 left and that they have to get me through the weekend or I’ll have to do a hospital visit and have Dr. A paged. Plus, as a friend told me the other day, Imitrex is “hardcore,” and the after-headaches can be just as bad as the original. Joy. (This week has only reinforced my dislike for surgical and medical intervention unless it’s absolutely necessary. They kick my ass. I found myself thinking several times yesterday and today that I almost preferred the nonstop bleeding to the freaking migraine.) So I sat up for a bit, and when the pain started coming back, I took a couple ibuprofens and had a can of Coke. My vision’s still a little screwy, but I managed to sit in the living room with the curtains all open and the overhead light on and still function. Woohoo!

On Wednesday 7 October 2009, I wrote:

It’s amazing how quickly the body can just shut down. When my parents visited on Fri & Sat, I was alert and awake for whole days.Then after they left Sun, I took a nap of several hours. Since then, I’ve barely been able to eat, and thus barely having [have] the energy to do anything but sleep. I’ve had a giant knot on one side of my neck & shoulders that I think has been responsible for a swollen throat that seemed to have made me go apnic for a day or two, causing me to repeatedly wake up gasping for air and, consequently, [with] a pounding head.

Monday, October 5 had been so bad that had I made an appointment to see Dr. A first thing the next day, as I had been unable to stay awake or to eat anything more substantial than a few crackers and an apple. On Tuesday morning, I threw up what little was in my stomach after I took my morning medicine. Dr. A thought the knot I was experiencing was not from being apnic but was from when I woke up after my D&C. He said that when I began waking up from the anesthesia, I had thrashed about, and that I was so strong that three or four people had been required to hold me down on the bed. He gave me two new prescriptions—one for a beta blocker meant to help prevent migraines, and another to help combat the nausea during migraines so I didn’t immediately throw up the anti-migraine meds as soon as I took them—and then he sent me on my way.

I thus spent some time Tuesday evening and night using a shiatsu chair massager. I was able to sleep for several hours without gasping and was able to get up early on Wednesday to stretch and try to help the apparent knot further release. Then, as I wrote in my journal, “Feeling a little nausea I lay down to nap. An hour or two later, forced down a few roasted almonds. More nausea, back to sleep.”

Finally, Mike woke me to make me eat. I was starving, but I was so hungry that I couldn’t eat. He brought me a roll and a glass of Coke. After thirty minutes, I had managed to drink three-quarters of the Coke and eat the roll, which was smaller than the palm of my hand. And I was dressed in clothes appropriate for the outside world.

Mike had to go to the unemployment office, so I rode along. I waited in the car while he was inside, and I wrote in my journal: “But even sitting in this quiet parking lot … is too much stimulation. My eyes can’t focus, and I can’t hold my neck up for very long. But I can do this. I know I can. B/c if I can’t, a stupid headaches & knot will have gotten the better of me.”

On the drive to the unemployment office, I had told Mike that I felt overwhelmed while he drove, “like my body was trying to come back alive after being in a coma, and he said I have been in something like a 10-daycoma. I think only 3 days or so b/c I felt good & got out over the weekend. But just sitting quietly in a car is overwhelming my senses.”

That was all recounted in my 7 October journal entry. By the next Sunday, I apparently didn’t recall that I had written that entry, or I was trying to process the whole week. Things were bad. My head hurt, and my memory was almost nonexistent. I couldn’t see well enough to write in my journal, so I was typing journal entries on my computer—but the light from the computer also hurt my eyes, so I either was unaware I was making typing mistakes, or I couldn’t see to correct them, or I just didn’t care—or perhaps all three.

I’ve left all the mistakes in the journal entry below. All of the journal text for the rest of this chapter comes from the electronic file with 11 October 2009 as its name and as the heading. I think the latter parts may have been typed in here accidentally a few days later, however, because the text near the end of the entry mentions a holiday, and the only possible holiday around this time was Columbus Day, October 12, which obviously would have been after the date of this journal entry. The entry was very long, very tangled, and very confused, so I have had to use my medical records, the appointment times noted in my planner, and other people’s recollections to explain the timeline and events as clearly as possible.

Sunday11 October 2009

Monstrous migraine. Went After Mom and Dad left last Sunday, I laid down and couln’t seem to stay awake much . Slept all night, but kept waking up in pain, gasping for air. Freaked out. It continued through Mnday, so I called several times to the dctor

 s office starting around 1. Finally got a call backaround 4 to set up appt for th enext day./

Tueay, saw Dr. A. Had vomited the day before, couldn’t eat. Was still in much pain. There was a giant kink in the upper right should[er] and into my neck. I thought mabe it was leftover from the survgery and that was causing my headaches and vision problems, because I could feel them occasinoally twitch and cause me problems.

Dr. A thought I just still had an undertreated migraine,so he gave me some more meds—one to help prevent migraines and one to treat nausea in the middle of a migraine. He figured the knot in my neck was just a knot, maybe left from having been fought down when waking up from anasthesia. He said I’m very strong…it took 3 o4 four people to hold me down hen I started coming out of it.

We went home and I took that medicine and nearly voited again. (This was ater [after] we stopped at the bank t deposit a couple of checks, and I realized that wearing my sunglasses in side might be seen as a act of migraie by some but with a husband standing that close to me, supporting me, it could lok like an abusive, overprotective husband, so I had to take off my sunglasses a little, just to leave no impression in anyone’s mind at the bank that I was wearing the sunglasses to cover up bruises.)

Anyway, the drugs Dr/ A gave me didn’t really do much. ust made me feel a little srange. But that night, no gasping in bed, so I was happiy. I was able to actually rest.

Friday, however, I was in tears almost all day. I’ve gotten into takeng  2 showers a day to help keep this know [knot] loose. In my shower, I was praying to god to healt it to take awaya ll my pain. I was singingling, begging any god/goddess for hellp. I couldn’t stand it anmore. This happened multiple times. Mike used BenGay on me, we used hot pads, cold compresses, but still everything hurt. I couldn’t find a compfortable position to lie down in. Mike massaged where he could, and I tried to drink plenty of water to wash out the toxins we were releasing with the massaging, but I felt constantly like I was going to voimit. I couldn’t breathe worth a damn.

Mike called [his stepfather] and his mo. [His mom] talked to me and said I needed to go to a doctor because I was in far too much pain. So she told me to hang up the phone and calla dr and insist on being seein. I did. Mike wne [went] to get in the shower. Dr. A’s office had no practitioners in it, said the woman who had answered the phone. They had been doing a flu clinic all day, and all the practitioners had gone, thought [though] it was about 20 minutes before closing time. So she told me to go to the ER and explain to them that I was there because my doc couldn’t see me.

Finally, while M showered, I gathered all my various medications, my planner, my notes that I had been keeping about all this ordeal, and we left in the horrible rainy weather.

We had to wait quite a while. By this point, my next [neck] was tremblin so much that I couldn’t keep it under control. I twas just constatntly trying to find a place to be coforable [comfortable], and there was none. We had to wait for quite some time. We got looked at by a paramedic, checked in, and a bracelet on my arm, then stood thereooowll sat, in the waiting room while we heard a second ambulance cmoe in.

Finally, after a few hours, a CT scan, and sme exrays, they said it’s just a complicated migraine. They have [gave] m,e an IV They had had me on an IV since they got me bak to a room and drew blood—I was dehydrated.

So basically, it was a migraine irritated by the anemia. They gave me some pain meds, and I finally had no pain. The twitching had stopped, and I could breathe normally. They gave me a couple of prescriptions to fill and sent me on my way.

I still coulndn’t see, but that was oky. Yesterday, I felt pretty good until abour fourt thirty then hurt all night. I lept [slept] for hours in pain, dreaming about killing people (I was appalled) and getting into fights all the time while moaning and cursing and groping my head. Mike tokld me this morning that’s’ a good thing because it shows I’m willing to fight this.I’m not sure I buy that, but I’m pissed.

Dr. A “gave me a clean bill of health gynecologically.” When Mike and I told him about my continued migraines, he offered to put us in touch with his wife’s doctor, who was excellent at treating migraines. Soon after, however, Dr. A’s office called to say they could not get us in “early enough to help,” so they called a neurologist for us to be seen. The nurse who had called said that because I had no insurance and would be paying cash, however, we had to pay $275 before I could be seen, so she was calling to make sure that was okay. I thanked her and told her I would be in touch, then immediately called Mom and Dad to ask for a loan. I was in so much pain, it was the only thing I could do. I had to be seen. I was nearly out of pain medication, and I was in agony.

I had managed to be seen at the chiropractor as soon as the office opened on the day before [probably Monday 5 October]. It made a big difference.

That’s as far as I could make it in the journal entry and still follow what was happening. Clearly, the pain and blindness were starting to set in again, as I started to ramble and couldn’t see where I was:

Last night, I was in a lot of pain after my shower so lay down a bit in bed and found a position that hurt my neck and back, but [it hurt only] because it was stretching those tense muscles, so I stayed there as long as I could. I was starving, but I didn’t want to miss the “therapeutic” opportunity. I ended up spending about thirteen to fifteen hours in bed last night, not sleeping well at points, obviously, but gettting some rest and apparently stretching and helping. This morning, we got the call from Dr. A’s office, like I said, but was in tons of pain again. I used a heating pad for a bit, then convinced myself I could endure the shouinds [sounds] and heat of a shower. A soon as I got dressed from the shower, though, I was missing [Nothing follows. I assume I was interrupted in my writing.]

So, let’s see, where was I? I have no idea, and I can’t read above to see where I was … so after the shower, I think that’s where I was … I figured it had been long enough since I’d taken Tylenol. … I took a couple Excedrin Migraine capulres [capsules]. They worked well enough that most of my pain went away and soe [some] of my vision returned, so I managed to eat a big bowl of soup that Mike made last night and to have a can of Coke. I’ve been able to speak and to see somewhat. Then around 3 three o’clock, the syptoms returned…y vision started getting a little worse (back almost to having only about twenty perscent or so of my sight) and my fingers are tingling a little, and the right side of my head is numb yet a little painful if I touch it. But most of the pain is under control at the moment. I’m hoping it’ll stay that wasy for some time, because I like being able to move without gasping in pain and cursing out loud (it seems I have tourette’s when I’m in a lot of pain—poor Mike keeps getting awakened by me in the middle of the night gasping for air and cursing this damn pain to get the fuck out of y head.

Okay, since three o’clock, we have discovered that some of our arborvitae=the very ones we planted for a hedge in the spring that nearly got wiped out by herbicide earlier this year==were mown down yesterday. We called the state to complain then realized that the state didn’t mow yesterday because it was a holiday. So now we’re trying to find out if it IS the [people] who own [the] land [that neighbors ours] …not only did they mow down those arborvitae that sure, aybe, possibly, COULD be on their land ) (though we highly doubt it_, they also then drove their tractor/mower ACROSS our land==basically almost ran over our two maple saplings and one of our raspberry bushes. So the stuff on the [edge of our] property, we could see if they thought it was their property, but then cutting right through the middle of our property? Mmm mm. Noway. Not gonna happen. We have got to find out what the hell is going on and put a stop to it, because that is just not kosher. … I mean, these are the trees that just barely made it this spring after the spraying, so we left the weed border as protection against the sray [spray], and then they get mown down. Son of a bitch. And what the HELL are they doing driving through the middle of our property?

Anwya, moving on from there, the doctor’s office finally called Mike’s phone…apparently having troubles getting through to my number again. So they called to say I had to call the … oops got interrupted, and I don’t remember where I was…um called thtold that the OB office couldn’t make an appt for me, because the neurologist’s office wouldn’t even schedule through them. So they gave me a name and number. So I called and had to leave a message because the offic manager … had gone home for the day. So hopeufully, I’llhear something tomorrow morning.

***

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