Emergency room.

Rough day. I think this is one of the only times that I asked (as opposed to Becky cajoling me) to go to the hospital. A splitting headache woke me up and nausea got me out of bed. Immediately threw up, which usually helps - not just the nausea, but oddly, this particular type of headache. Today, though, it did not help at all.

I have been getting migraines over the last 4 months or so. Blazing pain behind my right eye - it feels reminiscent of having a pneumatic hammer drive a nail into the side of my head between my right ear and my eye. This headache was different. It is similar to a pounding hangover without the pounding part. Just one continuous roar of pain encompassing my entire head. It always comes with vomiting  This is the 4th time that I have had this. All of them have been after my bone marrow transplant. The first one was by far the worst. A solid 10 on the pain scale. Luckily, I was still in the hospital, where they were giving me as much pain killer as they felt like was safe, and I was still intermittently passing out from the pain. I also vomited so hard that I pulled a muscle in my jaw and injured a nerve. My bottom lip and part of the right side of my face were numb for over 2 months.

The other two instances were much less dramatic. They were around 6 on the pain scale, and I got through them at home with large doses of morphine, and the nausea mostly went away after I hurled.

Today I couldn't get my pain or nausea under control, so off to the hospital we went. Incredibly, I had a new experience at the hospital. Not the CAT scan, I have had dozens of those, but I also had the joy of a spinal tap. I thought it would be much worse than it was. However, compared to a bone-marrow biopsy, it was cakewalk. We are back now, and I am not currently in pain, but I feel very fragile and woozy. It was not my usually migraine. It was a different type of pain in a different part of my head, but it was monstrous. 9.5 on the pain scale at least. While I am not in pain currently, it feels like the pain is only momentarily pinned under a wall of fentynol.

The nausea seems to be under control though. I just had a small bowl of yogurt, and I am going to try to take my pills. Then have a little more dinner (I haven't eaten all day, of course, and my body is plowing through about 3,000 calories a day because it is working so hard on a cellular level).

None of my doctors have any idea what might be causing it. I hope that it is not going to be a chronic problem, but will vanish once I am off my medications.

I have a good book to curl up with - H.G.Well's "The Time Machine". I plan on reading for a bit and then going to sleep. Tomorrow morning has almost got to be better than this morning was. I hope everyone else's "back from a 3 day weekend monday equivalent" went better than mine.