Please Make It Go Away

I finally went to see a neurologist on Thursday. I have been suffering from headaches for 8 years. I get a headache almost daily. When they first started I would take a Tylenol and that would be all. Then the Tylenol stopped working and I discovered Excedrin. Excedrin and I became BFF's. I carried a small bottle in my purse at all times. When I felt a headache coming on I would take the regular dose of two pills. If I waited a bit too long I would take it with a Coke. Now if you don't know me this is a huge deal. I don't like the taste of cola, but to get rid of the headache I would suffer through the can of Coke. If I waited to long to take the Excedrin the only thing that would work was sleep.
A couple of years ago when I was in the hospital for stomach problems (gal stones) the Dr.'s were very concerned with my daily dose of aspirin. After getting out of the hospital, gallbladder free, I adjusted my Excedrin intake. I cut back to half a dose. A while back, I can't remember when, I came up with the clever idea that if I took 1 Excedrin in the morning I could avoid the whole headache all together. This system worked for quite some time. I was rarely getting headaches.
However, lately things have been changing. My headaches are becoming more sever. My prevention pill isn't working anymore. My headaches themselves have also been changing. They are in different spots and they also seem to be affecting my eyes. It was the sharp pain in my eyes that prompted me to ask my general Dr what we could do. He gave me a referral to the neurologist.
Now I don't want you thinking that I suffered from headaches for 8 years and never did anything besides pop pills. During the first year I did a lot. I had many Dr. visits all to no avail. One Dr. said it was a tension headache, after the MRI showed nothing. I disagreed with this diagnosis because I get headaches in sacrament meeting. I don't feel tense in sacrament! I will not disagree that some of my headaches may be brought on by tension, but it is not the main cause. I had my eyes checked. (My headache is usually between my eyes). I suffered through migraine medicine that only made me sicker. I went to a chiropractor. I went to an allergist. I chose to go to an allergist bc I realized that while I was on Allegra D my headaches were not as frequent. Unfortunately for me all the Allergist Dr. wanted to do was give me shots to build up my immunity. I don't have a problem, per se, with building up my immunity, but my headache problem was not being fixed. I diagnosed myself with sinus headaches and prescribed myself Excedrin.
The Neurologist order blood work and is going to do another MRI. He also gave me two medications to take. One is for prevention and the other is for when I get a headache. See I had the right idea, jut the wrong meds. So far its not working all that great. I took a pain pill 3 hours and 40 minutes ago. I get to take another one in 20 minutes...and counting. I know I have to give it time, blah blah blah. He did say that if the blood work and MRI came back with nothing I would get to have a spinal tap done. Oh, what joy! Can you say ouch? He said that he would be testing the pressure buildup in my head, bc too much pressure can lead to blindness. He said something else but I wasn't really paying attention. I have been totally freaked out about the crap going on with my eyes and my head always feels like its pressurized. The good thing is, I'm not blind yet, meaning I didn't wait too long to see a Dr. Also he isn't the type of Dr. to just throw medication at the problem without finding out what the problem is.
In the meantime I'm going to keep taking the pills and hope they work, wait for the MRI to be scheduled, and try not to freak out about going blind. I must admit I'm not doing very good with the last one. I was laying down in bed, sleeping, trying to get the headache to stop. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep bc all I was doing was trying to imagine my life blind. I couldn't do my job blind...way too much computer work. My hobbies are reading, scrap booking, photography, puzzles, games (board and card), interior design, cross stitching, knitting and riding ATV's. I could still read through audio books and possible knit without sight, but the rest of it doesn't seem possible. See I told you I was freaking out! (deep breath) I'm going to go say a prayer for peace now then take another pain pill. I'll keep you updated on all my medical fun.

CONE HEAD

I REFUSE to be a grandma at the age of 31! Can you blame me? Due to my refusal my baby girl got fixed on the 17th. She had to wear the e-collar for 10 extremely long days. Luckily she learned quickly that she could still get through the dog door with the cone on her head. I was afraid that we were going to have a lot of messes in the house. She has been doing awesome on the potty training. There are still some occasional leaks when she is supper excited. I want to start letting her on some of carpeted areas in the house soon.


The first night she had the cone on was terrible. I didn’t know how the cone and her kennel would work so I decided to just leave the dogs out (on the tile) for the night. However, Miss Lillee got up at midnight for a stroll around the house. She must have still been sleepy because she was walking into scrapping the walls with her cone. (FYI this noise is actually amplified by earplugs!) I got up to make sure she could go out for a potty break then placed her and her brothers back in bed. This worked until 3 am when she went for another stroll. This is when I learned about the earplug amplification. At this point I was mad about being woken up again exhausted so I decided to try having her sleep in her kennel. After all, if she was in her kennel she couldn’t hit the walls with her cone. Once in her kennel, on the floor next to the bed, she didn’t settle down as I had hoped. Now she was hitting the kennel with the cone. I didn’t want her to wake up Neal, so I ended up freezing my toes off sleeping on the floor next to her kennel. She slept through the rest of the night (a whole 2 ½ hours). I spent the next couple of nights on the air-mattress. (My dog is so NOT spoiled) Luckily she eventually got a hang of the cone in her tight quarters (Really the kennel is quite large, but that evil cone took up lots of space.) and slept peacefully through the night.

Lillee was a menace with her cone. She is quite a handful as it is but the cone just made it worse. The cone situation was the hardest on KC. Lillee and KC play a lot. However, Lillee couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t supposed to play with KC while she had the cone on. Poor KC! When we were home we immediately corrected Lillee, but there was a lot of time for Lillee to torture KC while we are at work. Lillee walked into my legs numerous times and it hurt, bad. This gave me real sympathy for my middle child. Also Lillee managed to get the cone completely off one day while I was at work, for who knows how long. Twice she got the cone half off. Meaning the bottom of the cone was no longer on her neck, but in her mouth. She chewed it up pretty good.

Not only was Lillee torturing us with her cone, the cone was torturing her. She itched a lot. There were times when she would have an itch so bad, that she couldn’t reach, that she literally was crying. The cone matted her hair behind her ears and on the back of her neck. I had no other choice but to cut the mats off. They were tight to her head, which could cause skin problems if not removed. Suffice it to say that the whole house was very happy when Lillee’s cone came off.
Lillee got groomed yesterday. She lost more than half of her length. Her groomer Shauna did the best she could to blend in the chopped off portion part I cut with the rest of her body. I think she did a good job. (Especially considering what I gave her to work with.)

I also think Lillee is supper cute. You should feel her hair it is like running your fingers through silk. I might be extremely slightly prejudice, but I think my dogs kids are the best!