Tag Archives: Sparrow

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New Migraine leads to ER Visit

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I will look back at this and one day laugh…in fact all I can do is laugh about it now.  I have already written this post, but had completely forgotten about it.  I spent about a half an hour putting it together….and it was already put together.  Ugh Oh well!  Maybe some of you didn’t see the first post about the New Migraine 😛

The new migraine involves the left side of my neck where there is a great deal of muscle spasming.  On the back of my neck, it feels like a hand is being placed at the base of my skull and the fingers are tenticles of pressure that engulf my head before finding their target behind my left eye where it feels like a dagger.  It may sound dramatic, but this is the pain I felt for 6 days and on the 6th day my classic migraine behind my right eye joined the party.

March 26th: I am guessing that this drastic change in barometric pressure could be why I have been 6898_10153978454741897_7694716924008176830_n (1)down for two days. Such terrible pain and meds are not working. A 0.1 change can result in migraine. This shows a change of 0.66.

March 27th: Parent Fail due to Migraine #126: The kids have no idea it is Easter and that is ok because I was never able to get to the store to get any Easter basket stuff. I feel so terribly guilty, but luckily I was blessed with children who simply go with the flow and are not very aware of time. Maybe next week will be better and I can get to the store and hit the clearance sales so we can celebrate next Saturday or Sunday. I figure as long as we go over the real Easter Story that is the main point and it doesn’t matter when we do that. But the guilt will remain. And back to bed I go. This round of migraines/headaches has been really awful and I even have a new one that I have not experienced before. And to top it off it does not seem to be responding the medications that I have on hand. But I have taken all the meds in combo and am hoping for some lowered pain time to spend with my family later on today.

March 28th: Today is my 5th day in row down with the same migraine. Meds so far haven’t helped. This seems to be different than previous migraines/head pain. I am hearing from others that they are also suffering right now. I just wish the weather would stabilize. I have no other map_tileexplanation than that. At some point I am going to have to go to the ER but it is so damn inconvenient. So if anyone has no plans or kids to take care of who wants to hang out at Sparrow, let me know?

March 29th: I finally decided to go to the ER. My speech was getting increasingly more slurred forgetting words. 6 days straight does not do a body good when it comes to migraine.

Their new triage system is quite nice and efficient.  I never sat down from the moment I walked through the metal detector until I was in a room getting ready to be hooked up to an IV.  I got my wrist band, talked to the first person to tell briefly why I was there, then off to explain further and make sure all of my info and medications were up to date in their system.  In that same room I met with a triage Dr. where she came up with a plan which was put into the system.  I then went to get my blood drawn and give a urine sample.  I didn’t even have time to put my name on the sticker and they were whisking me to my room where a nurse came in quickly and started the IV.  My veins don’t like to cooperate, but today the woman drawing my blood got it on first try and the woman putting the IV in only took two tries.

The first round of meds is the migraine cocktail and for me that is generally; Toradol, Benedryl and Zofran.  It didn’t work of course (I had already tried that at home, but they have to try).  Then they came back with Haldol (which made me want to crawl out of my skin, it was terrible) and Pepcid.  It finally knocked me out but the migraine remained ever so present when I awoke.  They were debating on admitting me at that point, but after a consultation from the hospitalist on call they decided to try Nubain and guess what it worked.  I has yet to fail me in these terrible, long term migraine cycles.  They let me lay for quite a while and once the narcotic effects wore off the migraine was gone.

Dan had taken the kids home earlier in the evening because each one of these medicine cycles takes time to take effect.  So I called him at 1:00 am and gathered up the kids and came and picked me up.  I love that my kids are so malleable…they just go with the flow no matter the situation (well most of the time anyway.

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ER visit #3…I have the best friends

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I went to work feeling ok…still a mild headache which had remained constant all week.  But I didn’t take any medication at all this week.

I did however make great strides in helping out at work.  After combing through lots and lots of notes, it truly was back to the beginning we needed to go.  So I gathered up what information I had found and went over it with my boss.  At 3:00 pm we had a meeting with his boss to discuss our findings.  At this point we were all very hopeful that this would solve the problems the facility had been having for the past 7 years.  But we wouldn’t know until all the final details were worked out and we actually tried it (for which I would not be there, but on this day I didn’t know that it would be the very last day I worked at this place of employment).  The meeting ended at about 4:00 and at approximately 4:15 pm unbelievable pain struck above my right eye.  It came on so fast and so hard that I wasn’t sure how I would get home.  But I made it and went straight to back to bed.

My first thought was that the spinal headache has returned. Back to bed I go hi ho hi ho.  Laying down helped a little bit, but the pain wasn’t completely gone when I laid down, so there was a chance that it wasn’t a spinal headache either.  I just didn’t know what to do, but by 10:00 pm the pain was so severe that I decided I needed to go into the ER, but this time I was going to go to Sparrow ER.  Now to be done with this bleeping headache (little did I know)!!

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The only problem is that the boys are in bed and I can’t drive myself.  Social media to my rescue.  I asked for a ride to the ER and luckily my dear friend Christina stepped up to the plate.  She even stayed with me until 2:00 am.  By that point they said I would definitely be there until morning when Dan could come get me unless they were going to admit me…at 2:00 am they still didn’t know what they were going to do.  Back in the ER to get a 2nd blood patch (at least I thought this was the problem). Hopefully this will be the last procedure I have in 2015 (If only this were true!)

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This was a smile of relief.  They gave me morphine!

All tucked in for the night at Sparrow. Looks like I will be here for a little while, likely until Monday when full staff is available for testing. But I am nice and warm, my pain is being managed and it is very peaceful.  Counting all my blessings on this very very cold and blustery evening.