The reason why I had to split this post into two is that I was exhausted enough to have trouble spelling "the." I was tired going in to the appointment after sleeping some the night before and I have been on a run of headache days. The appointments tend to be enough to wear me out on their own even when they are so mild. Sometimes, I can hardly walk on my way out the door. I was happy that it waited until I got into the car this time.
By the time we made it home, I was happy to take my meds and pass out. We had a nice lunch from Wawa as we do when we're not broke on Pain Doc Day. This is a leftover tradition from the times when we needed to pack a picnic lunch and dinner to make it through the day. In any case, I was in bad shape when we got home and I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while. Eventually, Melissa got the urge to go browse the local thrift shop and I'm sure she told me about it before she left.
I just know that the phone woke me up when it rang and that a couple of hours had passed minimum. It was Melissa's boss on the phone and I'm glad she knows me. Otherwise, admitting that I had no idea if Melissa was home or asleep or what might have been embarrassing. As soon as we hung up the phone, I went right back to sleep until Melissa came home. I have no idea what happened through most of the night because I had just enough time to tell her about the boss calling before the headache hit and smashed me.
As I'm sure most people with chronic pain know, the idea is to medicate before the headache reaches that level but I was asleep. The good news was that I had started this blog so I had sound procedures for dealing with extreme pain on the brain. I took my breakthrough pain meds and then went into a nice trance. The headache felt as if it belonged to someone else and I was just snooping around in that poor person's head. Melissa informed me that there was wet weather moving in and that's enough to make for a miserable time. I tried to respond to her and remembered the bad news.
I don't know about other people but I can't speak or do anything requiring active thought in my trances. I can't even sing along to the songs on the radio. Ouch! Happily, I let her know this and it took almost no time to slip back into the trance. I couldn't read or write in my head or anything. The happy side of this was that the local firehouse siren didn't hurt nor did I get startled when Melissa coughed and the cats exploded out of our laps. I was possibly more aware than usual but couldn't do anything with the awareness.
Boredom set in and I kept "peeking" out of the trance to see if the pain was still waiting. I have no idea how long it took but the meds did take effect and I was able to "wake up" without agony. In fact, I was able to do as much or more than I can "normally" for a brief time before I got so tired that I couldn't spell at all. I went downstairs and got into my chair for the night and I actually slept some more. At least five hours went by this time while I slept and then got startled by the fact that I didn't recognize the TV show in front of me.
Wow! I just checked my blood sugar meter because I usually test in the middle of the night. That's usually the middle of my day or bedtime so it's not unusual for me. It is more accurate than trying to wake up in the middle of the afternoon to test on most days. After all, you're not supposed to wake up in the middle of your fast to test. Bedtime and wakeup time are two of the times when I might test. I'm supposed to do so twice a day out of seven times that reflect when I've eaten and my activity level.
You won't learn much about diabetes from me. Normally, I treat it like it's a big secret due to growing up with people who threatened me with it as if it were a punishment. (If you smoke, you will get cancer. If you overeat, you will get diabetes.) Diet is a contributing factor in becoming a diabetic but so is genetics. I don't talk or write about it much because it's one of my triggers. Once I get going on it, you're likely to see a lengthy tirade. This time, I'm just amazed that I slept through the night.
Well, it's rained overnight or early this morning so it's likely to be a bad pain day. I'm used to being so sleep deprived that I conk out on days like this but I might have to try something different. Maddie has been taking outrageous advantage of all the lap time time. If I'm the slightest bit sleepy and tell her to get off my lap, she will get up, stretch, curl up into a tighter ball and go back to sleep. I tend to follow within a minute or two.
Okay. This is going to be a painful day.
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