As good as it gets

Yesterday I brought my kids to a birthday party at the skating rink.  I predicted to my husband before we left that I would probably have a migraine by the end of it.  Sometimes I hate being right.  I guess it is the combination of the loud music, flashing lights, noise, etc.  I have been feeling very sorry for myself lately since I have been having so many headaches again recently.  Yesterday after driving home I took Imitrex and basically glued myself to the couch for the remainder of the day.  For some reason I remembered the line from the movie "As Good as it Gets" when Melvin is in the psychiatrist's office and turns to speak to the patients in the waiting room saying "What if this is as good as it gets?"  I feel the same way.  After all the conventional and unconventional therapies I have tried to get rid of or at least decrease the number of my headaches, I feel like I am trapped in this vicious cycle.  Immediately postop after my stimulator implant life was so much better.  I have slowly slipped back into a cycle of nearly constant headaches.  At first I tried pinning it on things such as the weather (which is still a huge trigger for me), certain foods, even being out in the sun too much.  Sadly, the list keeps getting longer again until I am left doubting the list is actually a list of things causing headaches and is actually a list of things I just happened to be doing on the days I had headaches.  I visited my St. Jude rep to adjust the settings on the stimulator and I was prescribed Imitrex, which actually has aborted 2 of my migraines, which I am still thrilled about.  Unfortunately I am still having headaches!!!  I am going back to my surgeon next month for a followup.  Maybe I should ask about Botox again.  Sometimes I think I would like to go to a deserted island for a week but it would be my luck to be stuck on an island full of noisy tropical birds or screeching monkeys!  I just don't want to be the mommy saying "Shh mommy's head hurts" anymore.  Hopefully soon I will find some type of relief.  I guess it's time to do some more research.

My poor forgotten blog!  I have not updated in so long I am ashamed.  After my surgery I had such wonderful relief!  Unfortunately over the past few months lately I have been having many migraines again.  Gone still are the stabs so that is a huge victory in itself.  I am considerably disappointed from having so many migraines again though.  I am currently on day 7 of a daily migraine.  :-(   My rep from St. Jude is on vacation.  He did leave a number on his voicemail for another rep to call while he was out, but since he is going to be back on Monday I decided to wait and contact him since he knows my history, etc.  Hopefully he can make me some new programs that will zap away these hateful migraines!!  If not, I am afraid it will be back to the drawing board for the migraine portion.  I am NOT saying that my surgery was in vain.  It has been a HUGE blessing.  I do not have daily pain anymore as I did for years.  I have many, many headache free days, which was something I only dreamed of before the stimulator was implanted.  I have tried eliminating "trigger foods" but there are still 2 things that cause a migraine regardless of what I eat, do not eat, get enough exercise and sleep, etc.  They are weather changes such as barometric pressure drops before a storm system and hormonal fluctuations.  Nothing I can do about those two sadly.  Hopefully I will find an answer soon.  I did some research about areas with the most stable barometric pressure.  The 2 US cities with the most stable barometric pressure are Honolulu and San Diego.  I also found that the Atacama desert in Chile gets only about 1 inch of rainfall a year.  I tried to convince hubby we need to relocate but he is unconvinced as of yet.  My daughters on the other hand were very easy to persuade moving to Hawaii could be a good thing for the family!

One month post op

I cannot believe it has been a month since my surgery!  I must say that it has been life changing in many ways.  My husband and I brought our youngest daughter on a field trip to a pumpkin patch last week and we had SO much fun!  I probably irritated them by constantly making the remark that my head did not hurt!  It was just so surreal to me.  I have not done anything fun like that without the constant stabbing pain every second and it is a completely different feeling.  We also went trick or treating with some dear friends of ours on Halloween and we had a blast!  I am so excited about going places and doing things I did not feel like doing for years.  I am still being careful though because I do not want to do anything to cause my leads to move.  I did have a little incident where my daughter went a little nutty and it was just me and her so I had to pick her up to make her get in the car.  I am hoping that everything is ok.  Now on certain settings with the stim I have started getting uncomfortable stimulation in my nose.  Yep, it feels really weird like when your hand falls asleep.  I hope that the lead in my cheek did not move around and change position.  My followup with my surgeon is in a couple of weeks so I will ask him then.  I think I am going to ask my St. Jude rep to make me a couple of more programs too.  I am back working part time also and love being back to work.  It is so different now sitting and working without saying "My head is killing me!"

Feeling much better now

It has been about 2 1/2 weeks since my permanent peripheral nerve stimulator implant surgery and I am feeling completely different than my last post.  I have been doing a whole lot more.  I am still being very careful not to do things to cause my leads to move, but I have been up and about a lot.  I no longer have any swelling.  My darling husband has taken out all of my staples and sutures tonight, and my incisions look really good.  I will update photos soon but tonight I am too tired.  I was all worked up ready for it to be excruciating but it was not at all.  My husband was very gentle and did a wonderful job.  I would be completely LOST without him and I owe so much to him.  I feel so completely blessed to have the wonderful family and friends that I have.  I am looking forward to enjoying life much more with these terrific folks.  I have had many mornings that I have woke up with no headache whatsoever.  I have found the trick for me is to leave the stimulator on all night but at a very low setting.  The first time I woke up with no headache I felt like telling the whole world.  It is a completely new experience for me.  I used to wake up every morning to excruciating stabbing pain in my head and wish that I had not woke up at all.  I do NOT miss those days!  I am feeling very hopeful that I am beginning to get my life back.  I really feel that all of the fighting I did for my surgery was so worth it that I would do it again without any hesitation at all.  It was an emotional roller coaster for sure but what a happy ending so far!  I never would have imagined the day I read the first article about ONS surgery how my life would be so changed.  I hope my positive results and many other patients going through the same will help get FDA approval eventually for this wonderful tool for people suffering so badly with head and facial pain.  WARNING:  Topic regarding female issues:  My first major test for the stimulator is my first menstrual period since my surgery.  My periods are my worst headache trigger and usually have me in bed crying for at least two days due to the increased head and face pain.  Not this time!  I was completely surprised when it started because I did not have the blinding headache beforehand.  Now the next test will be thunderstorms.  I am crossing my fingers for that one!  It just happened to be storming the first time I saw my surgeon Dr. Rupert and I was at my worst on that day.  I am nervous and excited at the same time to see how I do through a thunderstorm with the stimulator.  I have eaten chocolate on several occasions since surgery by the way, and it has been just fine.  I love my stimulator!  I am seriously thinking about naming it because it is so dear to me (and my family!).

Recovery is slow

I had my permanent peripheral nerve stimulator implant surgery October 1.  It was not powered up until October 3 because we had to wait until some of the swelling went down first.  I thought I would be feeling fantastic by now but unfortunately I am still VERY sore overall and having a hard time getting around.  I have learned to give up and just lie down because every time I am up and around for any amount of time my swelling increases, which causes more pain.  The headache aspect is so much better though that it is amazing.  I have only had one episode of what I call "the stabs", which the doctors call "exacerbations" since my stim was turned on.  Mostly I am just sore from the incisions and surgery itself.  I am very afraid of having my leads move as I have been hearing more and more stories of that lately so I am taking it VERY easy for as long as possible.  My husband has been extremely amazing throughout all of this.  I would not have made it without him.  My youngest daughter has been so very amazing and helpful also.  All family and friends have been great too, as well as the ONS support group on Facebook.  It is so great to have so many people to talk to when I am feeling bad, good, or whatever!  I got a new crazy haircut again, but thankfully my hair is long enough that when I leave it down it covers it up so you can't even tell.  That would not be a major issue anyway for me.  I told a doctor before that I didn't care if my whole head had to be shaved, and I still feel the same way.  My surgeon, my St. Jude Medical rep, and the whole staff that worked with me at Cool Springs Surgery Center were all wonderful.  I don't think it could have gone any smoother. 

Permanent surgery soon!

Wow I cannot believe I have not been back to my blog in over a month.  It has just been very busy and I have not felt well.  When my trial stimulator was removed, the Evil Headache was back at full intensity all at once 1 1/2 hours later.  It was terrible.  It has been terrible ever since.  I have been at about a level 8 for most of the time since. 
We also bought a new house - yay!  Moving has been really hard with the pain though.  I had to take so many breaks and stop what I was doing so many times it was ridiculous.  I have never had problems doing normal things like this until the Evil Headache came along.  Really I need a better name for it because "headache" just does not do it justice.  "Ice pick stabbing through the face exiting the back of the head along with another stuck in the side of the head" seems like a really long name.  I get really irritated whenever someone whines to me "I have a headache".  I want to punch them really!  I am having some anger/irritability issues from dealing with the 24/7 pain, is it obvious?! I cannot even drive without being afraid that one of my "exacerbations" will happen while I am driving.  I drove my youngest daughter to a field trip recently and it happened.  I went up on the curb but thank God that is all that happened.  I have basically been letting my darling husband drive me everywhere since then.  I try to explain it, but no one really seems to understand how bad these pains are that occur with the "exacerbations" (or as I call them "the stabs").  My body just shuts down and I cannot control it.  My eyes automatically shut if I am in bright light and I clutch my head until it starts to subside. 

Anyway, after waiting not so patiently I finally got word that my insurance company agreed to pay for the permanent surgery so I will be heading back to Tennessee again very soon and when I am able I will be back to blog about how everything went.  I have a terrible fear now that after I have the peripheral nerve stimulator implant done the pain will switch over to the other side.  I wonder if that has ever happened to someone with hemicrania continua?  Maybe I should do some research.  Wish me luck!!

Successful trial

Today I can joyfully say that I have had a very successful trial.  I was a little unsure at first because I had procedural pain and that pain was in the same areas as my pain normally is, making it sort of hard to decipher sometimes whether the stimulator was working or not because it was so sore there.  When I woke up on Saturday morning though, it was like the difference between night and day.  I had no headache and decided to try not taking my pain medication.  I was lucky enough to have a thunderstorm come that night also, which is one of my worst triggers.  I just changed the program on the stimulator and was good to go.  Still no pain meds.  I did get an answer to a question that I have been wondering for years now.  I wondered if I had the stim could I still get the bright red cheek that comes with the terrible headaches?  I did in fact get that bright red cheek but all the while I was chatting and laughing and felt much more like the old me.  I did make a stupid mistake though.  I got sleepy and went to bed forgetting to take my pain med (Kadian) that I have been on for almost a year now.  I woke up this morning sweating with chills and very nauseated.  It took me a few minutes to realize I had gone without taking any medication for 36 hours!  While I felt really bad for a couple hours this was still exciting that I FORGOT to take any medicine because my head was not hurting.  I am sort of emotional today.  My oldest daughter and I have not been getting along at all for a few weeks now and she even moved in with her biological father a few days before I went to Tennessee for the trial surgery, and now I am going back to Tennessee to have the stim removed but I don't want to chance infection so I will sadly give it up.  I am just not ready for trading in this wonderfully soothing massaging feeling in my head for the regular old pain pill taking, ice pack holding me.  Hopefully soon I will be headed to the permanent implant and my daughter will realize I am the best mom in the world (well one can only hope right)!