Ugh. Last night was rough. I had my first migraine, and a horrible spell of nausea leading to projectile vomiting. In fact, I think I sprained whatever muscle it is that makes you vomit, and I also popped by jaw. Even now, my jaw feels like I took a roundhouse kick to the head.
I don't usually rate my pain a "10" when I am not passing out from it, but this was almost unbelievable. If this is the sort of pain that most people with migraines go through, I am impressed that they carry on. I am sincerely hoping that this was a random one-time thing for me. It was so bad that I could not see out of my left eye. So of course, they whisked me down for a CT scan, because headaches like this are usually caused by bleeding in the brain or a brain tumor. My CT scan came back negative, thankfully. I literally was half-blinded by pain, and nothing else. They gave me dilaudid, which eventually brought it down to an "8", which on hyperboleandahalf's pain scale is "I might actually be dying, please help."
This was a lot better, but still not great. After two more doses of dilaudid, it was down to a "3", which, while painful, I can tolerate. I was able to fall back asleep and slept until they took bloodwork at 4am. Other than being woken by the nurses and doctors every few hours, I have slept all day, and got up at about 3pm to take my walk and do my exercises. I still felt fragile and everything was hard, but it is really important to do every day, so I do it no matter how I feel.
I got back from my walk and fell asleep for about an hour, carefully ate some dinner, and am posting this before I go back to sleep. I can see out of my left eye again, but there are some weird after-images when I close my eyes. No one know what caused this and we all hope that is just random unconnected with my bone marrow transplant.
It occurred to me that I had used a decongestant nasal spray that I have not used during this treatment, and perhaps it reacted with one of the drugs that I am currently on. I am sure not going to test this theory by trying it again. There is a limit even to my scientific curiosity.
Other than last night, the transplant is going well. Dr. Meehan, the lead oncologist, pronounced my lymphoma gone, although he is always careful to say that it is still a long and dangerous road before I am actually healthy again. Infection, host-donor graft disease, liver or kidney failure, and relapse are the most likely difficulties ahead. So far my numbers look really good, and I have not had any problems with any of the treatment drugs. Good thing I was never a binge drinker, since my liver is under a lot of strain with all these drugs. I have to take about 35 pills a day plus about 8 drugs through my central line. I can't wait until my donor's stem cells move into my bone marrow, take over, and start pumping out white blood cells. Go donor cells! Go!!!
Leif
The headache sounds really excruciating & scary. I sure hope it was a one-time thing like your nasal spray/drug interaction hypothesis. Glad to hear the treatment otherwise seems to be going well so far.
ReplyDeleteI came here from your sleep reduction blog. I noticed your last post and got curious to how you were doing.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to read that your treatment is having good results. I wish you all the strength needed to defeat your illness and come out of this experience with a long and healthy life ahead.
Hiya Leif,
ReplyDeleteWow--that migraine sounds like it was a killer one, and I think (and hope) that it was beyond what most people experience most of the time. That said, during my worst ones I sincerely wish for death to relieve the pain, but luckily those ones have become rare. I sure hope you never get another one at any level--you've been getting plenty of experience with extreme discomfort, so I'd like the universe to leave migraines out of your world from now on. Continued gratitude to both Becky and you for the updates. Hope to catch up voice-to-voice in the not-too-distant future (maybe after Cat's Feb break which is this week).