Update your bookmarks :-) I’ve moved…

http://joanna-herlifeinanutshell.blogspot.com/

I just had been noticing more and more of my blog pals have been using blogger, and I think that it might have more options available that I’d like to try out.  Nothing against WordPress at all - I have really liked it, but am going to try out blogger :-)  I’m not deleting this page, in case for some reason I change my mind or something.  Who knows.

All of my blog entries have been moved over already, I just didn’t move any comments or anything.

So… yeah!  I really shouldn’t even be doing this right now, I SHOULD be working on a lesson plan for my education grad class.  That will be in a few mins… I’m bad.

 

Hmm… kidneys?

If it’s not one problem, it’s another… right folks? So I have the blood pressure business back to normal: today was 122/80.

However… since I woke up on Sunday, I’ve had achiness/dull pain in my back where my kidneys are. I took 2 Tylenol yesterday to see if it went away, but that didn’t seem to do anything.  My system is obviously in shock right now, with tapering off the Topamax, having just had a 9-day course of Prednisone, had a few days trial of the blood pressure med that made me go too low, still on Cymbalta and Provigil daily… I did read last night that some people have had kidney stones while on Topamax, but it would be pretty weird for that to happen to me now that I’m getting RID of the Topamax.

The pharmacist who was taking my blood pressure said that if the pain gets worse, definitely go to the ER. Certainly a good idea. I had such a crappy night of sleep last night and I think it’s because I just couldn’t get comfortable in bed with feeling the dull pain in those areas.  UGH.  I’m seeing my primary care doc on Thursday now, too.

“It’s raining, it’s pouring, Joanna has more stuff wrong with her…”

 

goodbye, blood pressure med, I hardly knew thee. but you suck.

Yup, it’s a big “adios” to that medication.  I had my blood pressure checked again today, and it was still low: 104/60. Eep.  “Let’s stop that bloody drug,” my doc said when he called me just a little bit ago.  I hadn’t even taken it yet today because I was waiting for him to call me back.  A big relief to go off of that junk, because clearly it wasn’t helping out the head at all. Hopefully I will be able to start feeling better and not feel like a limp and heavy doll! My head has been hurting in a slightly different way, but I’m thinking that it’s due to the med changes and whatnot. Oy.

P.S. trying to play around with Twitter… I can see it on the blogroll on the right side, but it’s supposed to have little updates, not just a link. Hmm…

 

little update. and nice spanish men in the living room.

I was asked about my blood pressure: on Tuesday, my pressure was a whopping 92/70. I’m pretty sure that it’s the lowest that I’ve been, at least when it’s been checked. The pharmacist (who, it turned out, graduated from her pharmacy school with one of my good friends, which was a nice connection) was hesitant to let me just leave without rechecking and rechecking again. Luckily, I was only driving home around the corner, literally.

I’m going back tomorrow to have my pressure checked again at noon. Yesterday afternoon was my 1st “cut in half” dose of the blood pressure medicine (my new doc called me back in record time, horray!), and I’m hoping that after I take it again today, things will even out. That means I’m at a 4mg dose!? My doc had wanted me at 16mg on Friday (after a week of 8mg), but we clearly are not doing that. My body is just so sensitive to medication and changes with medication, and my mom always gets so upset when I have problems with that because she blames herself since she also has medication sensitivities. It’s always nice when your mother gets upset about things that she can’t control and then you have to reassure her, when you are the one needing the reassuring. But I <3 her anyways.

I had a bad evening last night, feeling quite low… D and I are having our living room/kitchen done as I mentioned, so we had some last-minute things to move out of the way. Even just putting small things into bags and bringing them into the office or bedroom wiped me out, I couldn’t believe it. My head was bothering me more yesterday as well, but it didn’t feel too much like my typical NDPH pain, so it was probably associated with the low blood pressure. I woke up feeling decent, luckily. I’m just taking it easy and not going anywhere. I just have to go out for a short while tomorrow afternoon - for my blood pressure check with my pals at Walgreens (not a plug per se, but the one I have been going to has been super nice to me), and to go to one of those “buy in bulk” stores for something I need for the bridal shower I’m co-throwing. Once the shower is over, I’ll post a picture of what I made, in case I have eyes of anyone reading this that is involved in the wedding

P.S. 3 nice Spanish guys are reflooring the living room and kitchen. Only one is really speaking English. I haven’t used Spanish since ‘01. Oops. As long as the kitchen isn’t carpeted, I think we’re golden.

the residue in the sink, post-flood. Mmm. after carpet was taken off. dirt? what?

 

Cloudy, humid, with definite light-headedness.

Yup. So my new doc has me trying a blood pressure medication that has been used for headaches (i love that - such random meds are used to treat other random things… hey, at least I’m not being prescribed little blue pills that are meant for men only…). Of course, with my system being as sensitive as it is, and with my blood pressure already being on the lower end of normal, it has gone down even more. Monday afternoon was when it really started to hit me (after being on the stuff since Friday AM), and since then I’ve been kinda unproductive. I drove the 2 minutes over to Walgreens so that I could have them take my pressure and then I drove home, so that’s about all the driving I’ve done. I was SUPPOSED to go to my grad class this morning, but that clearly didn’t happen. I wasn’t able to get into the car for just about an hour and then get on the little train and then sit through 3 hrs of class… and then drive again after that.

I managed to do my laundry this morning, but whoa, was that a task! I could have won the award for “Slowest Laundry-Doer Ever”. The laundry room in the building is in the basement and we’re on the 2nd floor, but thank goodness for elevators. Still, my laundry bag was no heavier than normal, but it felt like 10 tons. I took it slow and hadn’t even taken any meds since I was waiting for my doc to call. Hey, when you need clean clothes, what are you gonna do. I also just wanted to get it done with, since the pile has been growing, and I didn’t want to wait til D got home and whatnot. We’re cutting the dosage in half, luckily, and still moving along my taper off of the Topamax.

Tomorrow’s highlight: New carpet for the living room and new kitchen floor. Ya know, since it was, um, flooded. [Sidebar: As embarassing as it probably was at the time, I ended up turning on the waterworks of my own in the management office on Monday and was welling up in tears when I was told that it could be yet another week to wait for the whole recarpeting/flooring business to take place for us. I so kindly reminded them that we are living in half of our apartment right now and can barely stay in the part that was flooded for more than a quick meal's time because of the smell and mold that is probably growing. "We made some calls and can have it all done on Thursday morning." Gee, how prompt. Seeing as how we were told it would be 2-3 days, and now it's been almost 2 WEEKS. end rant.]

 

A little break in a bad cycle of pain = happy me…

So, this past Thursday was the day that I met my new headache doc at the office I’ve been going to for about a year now… the guy I had been seeing there left for family reasons or something (the best part: he wasn’t even going to bring it up until we asked him how long his fellowship was lasting for, and only then did he decide to tell me that “oh yeah, this is probably the last time you will see me”. Oops.).

Anyhoo, this new guy was fantastic, spent just over 2 hours with me (and of course, mommy-dearest). I really needed someone there with me on this visit because of how badly I’ve been feeling and how foggy my mind is in general. I would have just gotten all mixed up with the train schedule to get there and possibly even slept through the stop, and of course, my mom remembered certain things that I failed to (even though we had made a list of things to bring up)… this would be my “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” break-out number, changed to be about mommies and their awesomeness, of course.

We are doing what I am calling a “medication overhaul” — finally saying goodbye to everyone’s “friend” Mr. Topamax once and for all. I couldn’t be more excited, I almost started planning a Bon Voyage party. I think that would happen when my memory and all that jazz returns. I’ll probably talk a bit about the meds once I’ve been on them for a little while (as not to jinx them? not sure). I actually even got some injections while I was at the office, Lidocane and something else that ends in ‘cane (not candycane, I checked on that one!). Back of the head, front of the head, numbed me right up and helped to really lower my headache level right then and there… pretty amazing. A much improved/ happier ride on the train (can we say 3.5-ish hours? eew.).

I was even able to enjoy a weekend at a friend’s lakehouse, which was about a 2 hour drive from where I live. I had been nervous that I would have to cancel, due to the long drive and just generally feeling like junk. I really did feel so much improvement from my visit to the new doc and from starting some new meds/ beginning “The Great Goodbye” to topamax. crossing my fingers that it continues….

hope everyone is well. joanna

This where i sat for the weekend at my friend’s lake house. we moved between here and the dock. and the grocery store about 20 minutes away to get food (and the farm to get fresh eggs!) :

 

Ahh, apartment life… we are in a fight.

Scene: Yesterday.  A long afternoon outside with sun and heat for a friend’s graduation party, followed by my boyfriend D’s dad’s birthday dinner (semi-late) at their house, followed by needing to take a rescue med for pain that was starting to sneak up on me… I then needed to drive back up to our apartment (D and I each had our own cars to drive up, and it was about a 45 min drive).  We finally got into the apartment’s parking garage around 11:30pm, and I trudged with my bags inside.  My head was kinda still bothering me, but I had been alright enough to drive. I’m basically ready to collapse into bed.

I hear an “uh-oh” from D, who is a few steps ahead of me with his stuff.   There is a ring of wetness outside of our apartment.  Every renter/leaser/owner/person who lives anywhere’s worst nightmare.  We open the door, with each step, hear a SQUISH. SQUISH. SQUISHHH. Our sink is filled to the brim with the dirtiest of dirty brown water, the kitchen floor is covered with bits of lettuce-looking stuff, what looks like dirt (?) and a small layer of water, and of COURSE, the majority of the carpet in that room (the little kitchen opens up to the eating area/living room) is soaked.

Of course, seeing as how my head already hurts and I’m frustrated with the pain, it is only natural that my tears would start streaming at this point.  Which they did! I started pacing. And cursing. And pacing. There was also some cursing, if I didn’t mention that.  My printer was on the floor where there it is damp - i’m going to try to turn it on later. My nice Simple clogs (mine are darker) are possibly ruined. We do have apartment insurance and everything, but still. Who expects this to happen?  Apparently, the story is that there’s some sort of “pipe problem” between our apartment and our next-door neighbor.  They were home when the problem happened, so lucky for them, they didn’t have as much damage. Of COURSEEEEEE.  We had to be good children and visit with our mommies and daddies in the state over and be away for a few days.

Welcome back to your apartment, Joanna. Oh, you have a headache? Poor thing. Let me just get things a little wet here for you while you go take some meds, and while you should be going to bed to sleep off the pain, let’s stay up for a while longer and hang out- I mean, call maintenance! Yeah!

Here’s hoping you had a better/easier/pain-free weekend, friends!  I will end my rant now

 

Happy Birthday, country. Happy day off, friends!

I guess it’s only a day off if you’re currently working, which a lot of us “headache folk” aren’t doing too much of lately, hehe.  I have a little homework for my grad course that I just started to be working on now, so that’s always a good time.  Anyhoo, I saw fireworks LAST night (the 2nd), so for anyone who isn’t able to see any fireworks at all, here you go :

Enjoy :-)  Here’s to a day of celebration for the country, and hopefully a day of celebration of not too much pain.

 

sort of headache related?

a 4-legged friend of mine :-)  I had a bit of “dog therapy” this afternoon, and it was nice!

 

Meds losing their effectiveness?

I’m starting to wonder (worry?) if my troubles with my meds at all lately are due to the fact that I’ve been taking them for too long (the daily meds), and if my “rescue meds” (the ones that I take when the pain gets really bad) are starting to lessen their “rescue” effect because I’ve had to use them so much lately…

Has anyone had any experiences with meds that had been providing enough relief to keep taking them, all of a sudden stop giving as much relief as they previously had?

This is sort of random… I had a crazy day, and my head has been B-A-D. Woke up at 6:30 (after being able to sleep in a bit since my job ended mid-June!), left apartment at 7:30, hit the highway to connect to other busy roadways to get on public transit “trolley” in the “Big City” to get to my first 10am-1pm graduate course.  I made it with about 20 minutes to spare, but I thought I’d have even more time than that! Grr. Sat through class, head started hurting (randomly, of COURSE) during it, got back on “trolley” to get back to my car to get back on the highway to drive just over 2 HOURS to be with my family around 5:30 for dinner.

O to the Y is all I have to say about THAT.  Did my head bother me while I drove? Of course. It was a glorious drive.  My rescue med that I took when I got here didn’t touch it at all… I’m sure I could have taken something else, but it would have probably been the DHE shot, which hurts like the dickens… and that’s putting it nicely, folks.

…. ‘nite