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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The. Worst. Pain. In. The. World.

I have broken my arm...and elbow. I've sprained ankles. I've broken and dislocated my knee. I've given birth to a baby via c-section, for crying out loud.

Those things all hurt. A lot. In fact, I often say that my broken dislocated knee was the worst pain imaginable.

Turns out, I was wrong. My fragile little brain has the ability to hurt me more than anything else I've ever experienced.

To clarify, I've always had headaches. In fact, I was diagnosed with migraines a number of years ago. But pharmaceuticals have never let me down. Sometimes, if I don't take something fast enough, it takes hours for the pain to abate. Hours I have to spend in a darkened room, with a pillow pressed tight against my head.

But it always goes away.

Or at least it always did. Until Saturday.

On Saturday I woke up with a headache. Not a migraine, just a headache. So I took something. It didn't help. In fact, as the day went on, it got even worse. So much worse that I ended up taking some migraine meds.

That worked. For an hour. Then it came back.

This cycle continued, endlessly, for days. I couldn't sleep. I wasn't hungry. I couldn't work. I began thinking that I had a brain tumor - or was about to have an aneurysm.

Finally, yesterday, when my husband realized I was sobbing because it hurt so bad, he took me to the urgent care. Before we left, I packed my glasses, some makeup - a few things my irrational brain thought I would need if I ended up in the hospital needing brain surgery.

Yeah. It was that bad.

Long story short, it wasn't an aneurysm. Or a brain tumor (I hope). Nope, the angels at the urgent care just injected my butt with a bunch of drugs (horse tranquilizers, I think), and away it went.

It's just a memory now. A memory of a nightmare. One that could return at anytime. One that is immune to the most powerful weapons in my medication arsenal. And you know what? That's frightening.

13 comments:

  1. Cluster headache? I just wrote about the one I had on Saturday today: http://marfmom.wordpress.com. I had another one Monday night but I took imitrex and that stopped it. I'm terrified of when the next one will hit though. So, I completely understand. I went to the ER too. :-(

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  2. Oh no! I saw your tweets about a headache, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I had to take Jason to the ED once for a headache. They gave him some IV drugs, but not before telling him, "This has a weird side effect... people complain of their genitals burning."

    Um... yeah... they did... but the headache was gone! I hope you didn;t have any weird side effects!

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  3. Headaches that are not killed by drugs are scary. I hope your brain learned its lesson and will not torment you so again.

    But I have to say, I found it entertaining that in your midst of fear, pain, and preparations for a potential hospital stay, you made sure to pack your makeup. Because that is a critical thing to have when undergoing brain surgery...

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  4. Oh my word, that does sound terrifying. I'm glad you're feeling better!

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  5. One of my friends who consistently had bad headaches went to the hospital for drugs, and the drugs killed the pain for an hour and then the PAIN was back in full force...
    This friend always got headaches (migraines) if you will and the hospital drugs didn't cut it this time. Turns out after doing some tests on her when she slept, she was not getting enough oxygen. On the day she went in to the hospital her O2 saturation was in the 70's....

    She wore oxygen for a little while after that and now wears a C pap machine at night. Bad migraines? They no longer exist for her.

    Just a thought if they keep coming back...

    I am so relieved that the hospital was able to give you drugs to make the pain go away...
    OUCH! Sounds very painful indeed.

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  6. So sorry!!! I had a serious headache like that once. It ended up being a serious sinus issue. I guess you have sinuses at the top of your head? I don't know. But I know it was severe. I hope yours never ever comes back....

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  7. Our local news just ran a story last night about how much worse migraines are during the holiday season. Very painful but unfortunately common this time of year - hope that was your last one!

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  8. Scary stuff. Headaches are no fun by any means, but that sounded horrible.

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  9. Oh that sucks. I had to get the morphine once. I too was suffering. But ah the morphine makes it all go away.

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  10. That's awful! I'm glad your husband finally took you to the ER for some relief!

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  11. Absolutely that is terrifying, espcially when it affects you so. That is a horrible thing to have hanging on your shoulder. I am so sorry!

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  12. Oh no! What a horrible thing! I hope it doesn't come back, ever! :(

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  13. Dude. Now i know what to fake in order to get horse tranquilizers. Thanks for the tip! My worst pain ever was actually ripping my fingernail off. It hurt for 4months. I'll never be over it.

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