My metal miracles

So, March 15, 2016 is a remarkable date in the history of my life.

I got a toradol shot, emergency style, 2 days ago which did not touch my migraine pain.  If it did, it was not enough for me to notice and the agony I was in did not abate.  I reached out to some of the support groups I'm in to see what others experience with these shots have been.  I was informed and guided into daith piercing, which I had never heard of.  It is a specific fold making up the outer ear.    I read as much as my smashed up brain would allow that evening about the piercing and figured I had nothing to lose by trying.  On Yelp, I found the highest rated tattoo place in my area which was also, ironically closest to my home.  Piercings, $20 each.  I didn't really have the mental capacity to be worried or scared.  On the ride there, I wore 2 pair of sunglasses and kept my cloth hat over my face to protect myself from daylight.  I prayed "God, please just give me a peircer who really, really knows what they are doing and have compassion for me."  We, Tim and I, arrived at our first tattoo shop inside of 10 minutes.  I was clearly in agony and the piercer, Mitzi brought all the paperwork to me to sign.  When we got back into the piercing room, she told me that if I was doing this for severe headache relief, she highly recommend I do the tragus instead of the daith.  Since I had no expertise from which to draw, I let God guide the situation and said, "If you think that is better."  She explained that the daith, while being a pressure point that does relieve headaches, it is a more minor point than the tragus pressure point.  So, on we went.  I was laying down and she did the right first.  It felt like mostly a lot of pressure.  Not pain at all in relation to how my head felt.  Then she went to the left.  So, who knows why, but on this side, thank God I was holding Tim's hand or I might have writhed physically from the pain.  I did see stars from the sudden pain shock.  It felt like some concussions I have had, only prolonged for about the count of 5 or so.  Agony, no dressing it up.  But, here is the thing.  Inside of 30 seconds, I was able to sit up with my headache having gone from an 8 to about a 5.  I could take my hat off and look around with just one pair of glasses on.  I could speak clearly and articulately.  It felt like someone had just pulled a plug on my migraine and it lost it's power.

When I got home, I did take an NSAID for the dull ache of my ear that was beginning and it was important to keep any swelling or inflammation at bay.  As the afternooon went on, my headache continued to abate.  Several times I wanted to cry with joy at the miracle of it.  But, I did not, not wanting to the the remaining headache any fuel.  By the time I went to sleep...... my headache was GONE.  At a 0.  Entirely and  completely gone.  With no medication.  With no side effects.  For $40 bucks.

Today, I rode to Dallas with Tim to keep him company on his way there for a job interview.  I wore my hat and one pair of shades, like a regular person.  I enjoyed thoroughly the glorious spring day in Texas.  We were gone a few hours and I still feel entirely well, headache-wise.

If you've never had a migraine, I'm going to try to relate what this day and a half have felt like.  When I went into the shop there was a super heavy-duty length of chain wrapped around my skull being tightened from both ends like a tug of war by two invisible teams.  When she did the right side, one team let their end slack.  When she did the left, both ends of the chain were dropped and the chain began to fall away.  As the day wore on, the rest of the chain fell off of my head onto the ground, to be left behind.  If you can imagine that, you're pretty close to the reason I feel like I have two little metal miracles in my ears now.

I had a friend over last weekend who had brain surgery and now has 4 electrodes permanently implanted in her brain and an electrical tube running down her spine to a battery power supply implanted in her hip.  She did this for migraine relief.  It's called the Omega procedure.  Invasive brain surgery.  And I was thinking about it.  I was on that path.  But now, here I sit, happy as a clam, if clams are happy, with my new pierced tragi.  My new favorite word.  Tragi.  

If I have ever felt more blessed, I cannot remember it.

Have happy, happy days.

Change in life

I have an article on my refrigerator entitled 5 Ways Having Fibromyalgia Makes You Awesome that I read every few days to remind myself of my "superhero-ness".  (I have a migraine right now that feels like it could literally light me on fire if the wind blew the right way, so my communication ability may be limited.)

I'm waiting on call backs from 2 doctors today that I HAVE  to get because, tomorrow is the last day I have insurance.  My medicare probably won't kick in until April 1 according to the nice Social Security lady.  I could have dealt with this anytime last 2 weeks since Tim's layoff but, the migraines abated.  The weather was lousy for so many days in a row.  No sunshine.  And, headaches were both less frequent and less severe.  Yesterday, finally we got a sunshiny gorgeous day and WHAM.  I feel like I laid my head down and let a semi run it over a couple times.  Yeah.  That bad.

So, anyway, I now don't have any meds to rescue me from one nor can I go to sleep with this kind of pain, because I took the last of that drug yesterday, so here I am.

The little article linked says that I adapt well to change, its #4.  To that I say, what is the option?  The way that some fibro pain works for some of us is like this.  It travels. It feels like it is in my bloodstream and just every now and then, there's an explosion.  It can go from my elbow, to my knee, to my eyeball, to my toe and then my tooth inside of 2 minutes.   I swear this is not exaggeration.  And rarely is the last location done before the next starts, that is if I'm granted only one- at- a- timers.  I won't even go in to multiple site incidents.  Just imagine for a moment that someone stabbed you directly in your eyeball, say about 5 times.  And now add to that invisible person #2 who, on the 5th eyeball stab from the first guy, began stabbing your toe 8 times.  Either one of those would floor any of us, on our best days.  Our brains become overloaded with the shock of the pain of it.  Well, that's why I don't talk so good sometimes.  It's why I don't drive.  It's why I don't work and I can't be relied upon to make decisions.  This kind of thing is an entirely spontaneous occurrence in my body.

Human beings love stability, security.  We seek it from the time we are young.  We find what feels good and comfortable and familiar, and we want to STAY there.  We resist changing.  It's why habits are so hard to break.  It's why loss of loved ones is so catastrophic and why divorces or job losses are major life events that can set folks on a tragic spiral downward.  Change sucks, we're taught.  But, I have had to re-learn lessons about change.  I have had to give it a second chance and let it prove to me that it doesn't suck.  I am in a situation where I must hold it's hand, if you will.  (Saying I'm stuck with it is so negative.)  I do not know from moment to moment, quite literally, if some invisible, unexplainable, stabby, ice-pick pain will pierce my body, or which part of my body, or for how long.  I just know that it is likely.  I also know that I have survived it every time so far.  It isn't fun.  Sometimes it makes me scream out loud, which can be embarrassing if I'm in public.  That kind of uncertainty is a ginormous bag to carry around.  I have been blessed that I am finally able to be brave enough to let Christ carry mine.  Now, I just live with the fact that I have no idea what lies ahead in the next 5 minutes, the next hour, the next week, but I do know that how I feel will likely vary greatly and possibly to an extreme which feels unthinkable.  Also, I know that whatever else changes in my world, even if my flesh should perish, (and my brains begin to seep out my ears which feels like it could happen at any second)  the one and only thing which will never change is His love for me and His promise to never abandon me.  It is simply that which keeps me riding the waves of all the other changes.  So, the article gives me kudos for adapting well to it.  But, to it I say, how can I not?

As my spouse searches for a new job for the first time in 18 or 19 years, as I navigate changing from private health insurance to Medicare, as we roll through daily life and I hide from the sunshine, which I seem to be allergic to, I give thanks that we are together.  I give thanks that I keep surviving, and that if only one person benefits from these words, I feel I haven't wasted my time.  I give thanks that I know it is not my job to understand.  It is His.