Ah, where to start? A week of multiple ERs, and not a little stress.

This particular migraine started on Thursday. Since I get about a migraine a day it might seem strange that I call some continuous and others stop and start anew. Basically, it's about the characteristic of the painful parts--are they consistent with the previous painful parts--and the characteristics of the less painful parts--are they pain free, or merely pain-lite?

Monday I tried to go to the ER. I tried to go to two ERs, but neither of them would give me much in the way of painkillers nor the other stuff in my recommended cocktail. The first ER gave me 1mg dilaudid intra-muscularly, and 25mg of Benadryl. Seems he only wanted to give me two things, and once I told him that dilaudid made me itch he took the anti-emetic off the bargaining table and replaced it with the anti-histamine.

Effect on my migraine? Sweet FA.

The second ER--well, there's a theory that I shouldn't have told them it was my second ER. But I hold onto the conviction that if I tell them everything they'll be able to treat me more knowledgeably.

Maybe not these guys. Absolutely no way they could give me more than 1mg of dilaudid. I'd never be given SIX. I told him to check my records from the last visit, but he said they didn't write things like that down.

Eventually he got through to my GP and my migraine specialist, and was willing to go as high as 2mg.

Effect on my migraine? I lied and went home.

By Wednesday I couldn't go into work. Thursday I got a last-minute appointment with my GP who called the migraine guru and not just had the explicit protocol put in my files for two hospitals, but also called one of the ERs and told them to expect me.

Push comes to shove, going to the ER alone is horrible, but I didn't have much alternative. It took them some while to bring me in, and the doctor who saw me seemed flabbergasted at the dosage, and even more flabbergasted that I've had up to 10mg in one visit. They hooked me up to all sorts of monitors, gave me the cocktail of medications, and lo! It was like unto a beam down from the heavens.

I got my brain back. Oh, a loopy brain until the dilaudid wore off, but a clear one. Ugh. Way too much work and took way too much time.

It's funny--when I go with my normal escort, I tend to get enough medication. When I don't, it becomes a crapshoot. I wonder if he'd be flattered to hear that?

The hospital was...miserable is too dramatic, but I certainly feel my weekend was stolen...bleak.

My roomie spent much of her time moaning in pain after an angiogram to work out why she'd had a stroke after some sort of shunt.

Some guy kept wailing "Help! Call the paramedics!" Every outburst of his was followed by an annoyed nurse explaining to him that he was already in the hospital and that the paramedics couldn't help him.

I think they ended up tying him to the bed--I know I heard a few crashes that sounded like him hitting the floor.

They weren't trying to heal me this past weekend so much as they were experimenting on a new treatment and its efficacy. I did not pay attention to that distinction, and had been hoping that they would be all about the total migraine relief.

I have had many panic attacks about hospitalisation--I'm not sure having actually gone in will prevent the next one.

It feels a bit less dire once you've had a chance to pee

::sigh::

Ill-omened from the start, but nowhere near as cold as I had worried.

Let me explain--no, too long. Let me sum up.

I spent the weekend being given doses of DHE and hopefully nothing else to see how my migraines and vital stats were affected (I was hooked up to nifty machines with alarms and an automatic blood pressure reader).

Couple issues:

Freaking loud, and intermittently smelly with chemicals--bode badly for migraines

Lying down for 48 hours is in no way useful modelling of my life, even a bad migraine weekend

You can't make the migraine go very far if you don't tend to the shoulder pain

I was an experiment. I understand that. They are studying DHE's efficacy on me, and lack of me-killingness. Much appreciated. However, this means they weren't tending to my pain--that would mess up the stats.

I did manage to get 1mg of Dilaudid (what I really wanted and thought I'd surely get were trigger point injections, but, no--opiates over local anesthesia) to bring down the shoulder and neck screaming, but the nurse tried continually to talk me out of treating it. "If you can bear it," he'd say, "then don't take anything."

"I can bear anything," I snarled. "I just don't want to. I don't want to end up in the ER because you've let two days of this pain go untreated."

Even then, after what seemed like conceding, he didn't administer it to me until I asked again, a full hour later than he said he would.

Now, it could have been a pharmacy thing. It took me four hours to get admitted because they hadn't been expecting me and the neuros were on rounds with people with actual problems (I'd call my roommate a whiner, but only in the sense that I'd probably whine if I had had multiple strokes in my early 30s). Then it took another four hours to get my first shot of anything.

On the up side, I got to meet a lady from Belize.

On the down side I was never formally discharged because I got fed up waiting for the wheelchair and left--my escort got a $45 ticket for not leaving me until I was admitted, and I really didn't want to inconvenience him any more. I'm paying or challenging the ticket, but still.

Money point: My head hurts right now, but at least I can take meds for it.

Next steps: Gonna make an appointment with my PCP for trigger point injections. Migraine guru can get back to me when he has his epiphany.

Guru left a message this afternoon explaining why checking in Friday evening was a bad idea. Not enough manpower, and I'd likely be left hanging. Still...wouldn't it have gotten me out earlier? At least, not later?

Ah, never mind. Escort was set for Saturday morning--he's picking me up at 7:30am. The guru is understandably hard to reach. Apparently he has 1/2 a day of clinic time a week. But the scheduling coordinator doesn't answer her phone until after 4pm, I learnt yesterday. So not going to bother chasing down an earlier tee time.

His message instructed me to not take any more migraine meds because they can interact negatively with DHE. It was just a message, so I don't know if he means just abortives, or abortives and prophylactics. Still, the instructions say to show up empty handed (like, send your clothes back with your ride--so not happening), so I'll just steer clear of both categories of drugs from here on in.

Annoying, because I'm having a migraine. Not the sinusy one of yore, but what I consider my classic--it feels like my eye sockets are lined in sandpaper and my eyes are leaden and heavy.

As long as I can get to sleep, I should be fine.

I'd like to take a moment to wave at my mother--she offered to take on my anxiety attacks for me, since she'd be having one anyway.

Who knows? Maybe it'll work.