Monday, November 2, 2009

Barf Bag Envy


No More Cankles!

My Erpiness and Belly pain continue. Today has been minimal food day. I tried to eat a real sandwich yesterday and it didn't taste nearly so well coming up as it had going down. I am wishing I had some of these deluxe barf bags to take with me to the client next week. The nausea hits so hard and fast I fear erping in public.

I guess I shouldn't be embarrased about public puking. I have spewed my stomach contents in many places over the years, due to migraines. When I had migraines (instead of the hemicrania continua I have now) they were called "common migraines" or migraines without aura. They would often sneak up on me, and I would be somewhere doing something and then BOOM a full blown migraine.

The nausea often was my first clue that I actually was having a migraine - the pain grew gradually up to the point I got reaaally reaaally sea sick and then it was a skyrocket of pain for the next three to eight hours. I have thrown up in restaurants, cars, office trashcans, public toilets, parking lots, and the side of the road.

My worst experience was pulling my car over in front of this house hopping out of the car and projectile vomiting - bleah bleah bleah - and then looking up to see a horrified family having a picnic in their front lawn. What can you do? I weakly waved and hopped back in my car and drove quickly away! I had to pull over and just wait the migraine out in a parking lot down the street. Another time a friend and I were in Ft. Lauderdale and had just gotten through walking around downtown and were driving back to the hotel when the migraine hit. I warned him that I was going to pake, he didn't believe me until I started to heave - he quickly pulled the rental car over but not before I let loose on the passenger door. Eeeyou! Next time I told him I thought a migraine was coming on he listened!

I may have to just starve myself at the client's and stick to strictly fluids. I have been drinking some Ensure high protein but even with the pancreatic enzymes The Belly hurts. I've done it before, so I can do it again - it just takes inner discipline. On the plus side I have lost an additional four pounds this week. Woo Hoo! I have now lost all the weight I gained from taking steroids so long last year.

I go back November 10th to see the immunologists in Kansas City, and then I go for the endoscopic ultrasound of my pancreas. Hoping for pretty good news on these two fronts - my hives are actually better than they have been in two years! However my face is swollen and broken out with a rash of sorts - not sure if it is from the antibiotics or there is another reason. Hoping it goes away with the kidney infection that wasn't an infection. I have ankles again, very glad to get rid of the cankles I was sporting. Guess even tho I officially had no infection, the anitbiotic seems to have done the trick.

A weekend of rest, a week of travel, and then back home again to rest. I'm tired already and am just waiting for The Belly to calm down enough to sleep. Next week is going to be a long week I am afraid. Hoping the cankles don't come back, or I may need to get "The Circulation Booster" to get rid of them!


4 comments:

  1. I carry one of those airline barf bags around with me everywhere I go. Fortunately it's rare I vomit, even with my Migraines, but I'm absolutely petrified of being somewhere (like on a bus) and puking. ;)

    -MJ

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  2. MJ -
    no matter how often I think I am prepared, inevitably when it comes time to upchuck I am unprepared.

    I keep a bag in the car, because nothing is worse than cleaning barf out of the vents of your dash and the inside of your windshield (been there done that). I have a thing about throwing up in public toilets - something about putting your face near where so many have sat...Glad I'm not the only one with these fears!

    One thing about throwing up in public - you definitely don't have to worry about lookiloos, nobody lingers near you!

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  3. Fortunately I don't get the puking when my headaches start, though they do get bad...they never get to that point. Guess I'm lucky there. Honestly, I've never suffered from Migraines the way you have (yours sounds extremely aweful) but I always just got them here and there. I did have them enough though that each time I'd go to the doctor about them they'd tell me that it was a chronic daily headache. Sometimes I think that some doctors don't want to help much if it requires extensive research.

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  4. My migraines years ago were just a couple of times per year, and then increased over the years - by the time I was in my 30's they got fairly frequent! Always the Linda Blair Exorcist projectile vomiting to go with them...

    Not everyone gets the nausea, so I'm glad you don't! Menopause go rid of the headaches for a couple of years then BAM I get The Headache to end all headaches! Just my luck!

    I agree that docs don't want to spend the time with "difficult" problems, but I think that rather than not wanting to research, many are just too arrogant to research!

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