Good Day Bad Night

Stomach Stress

Worked a full day today and then some, have another client visit Monday to train. Needed to prep my materials, print the handouts, setup examples in the training database to train on - a pretty full day in normal circumstances. So today was complicated with an unplanned meeting, helping a coworker out with a problem, and a large support issue that was almost impossible to complete because the secure vpn connection I needed kept going down. AUUUGH!

Maybe that's why The Belly and The Headache are going gangbusters tonight. Despite taking anti-nausea medication I have been tossing my cookies (quite literally - I actually ate a cookie at Christmas desert day at work!). My hives are breaking out big time to boot in spite of taking antihistimines to decrease them. My plaquenil doesn't seem to be helping this outbreak much.

I did do the happy dance at work today because I whipped out a couple of special reports for clients in spite of the chaos of my day. I'm pretty fast when all my brain cells are firing.

All my blood tests seem to be in that Dr. Gnome ordered, and hopefully his office has them by now. Cholesterol and triglyceride levels are great - not surprising since I haven't been able to eat much fat in my diet for years! I show signs of systemic inflammation, no surprise there. I have low levels of some weird antibodies but nothing looks significant to me. To my layman's eye it doesn't seem that anything pops out as a cause of the chronic pancreatitis. I was hoping it would, because it is simple to treat autoimmune pancreatitis, and once treated it sorta goes away. Guess I have common garden variety chronic pancreatitis which has no cure. I will follow up with Dr. Gnome's office Monday if I have time.

I've taken the maximum medication I can imbibe for the next three to four hours. Wish I was tougher, and The Belly was less touchy. Need to improve because I have things I need to do this weekend.

My older brother was so nice, he went into the garage and put up some of my Christmas decorations including a couple of trees with lights and some wreaths. He didn't seem to find any ornaments, and I'm not sure what happened to them last year as The Headache was going full tilt when I put up the decorations in January. Our mom was quite pleased with the Christmas decor. My younger brother has been playing Christmas songs all week to try to get us in the mood. Maybe I will get in the spirit but right now don't have the energy required.

Bad Headache Day #41 2009

Too Much Travel?

Been a bad day today, although with the help of the stimulator I managed to stay at work all day and be somewhat productive. I think yesterday's travel was a little too much, 2 hours driving in the morning, two more hours in the late afternoon.

The clients were wonderful, as I expected. Very responsive, and we got a lot accomplished so I didn't think it was necessary to be there two days. I'm going to do some more setup at the office, and need to get a decision from the higher ups as to which box/database the clients need to enter their new master files into. My compatriot from work who traveled with me is a wonderful outgoing programmer and she is very organized and helpful, so I had a great trip work wise.

The Headache was very strong last night and tonight my medication isn't working and my stimulator isn't keeping up. I tried to eat some food today, and maybe its my pancreas and The Belly acting up not The Headache?? Can't tell, the pain is just increasing despite all my efforts. I took my usual dose that should knock me out at 8 PM but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick, and I'm not sure if I should take anymore until about midnight. The nausea is especially bad so maybe if I toss my cookies it will help. ewwwwww.

I think it has almost been a month since the last really bad headache day - a new record for The Headache! The pain is bad, but the stimulator helps a great deal. I'll mess with the settings in a little bit and see if I can ward off the worst of this. I'm having a lot of left eye pain right now, and from past experience that is not a good symptom. My body seems to be losing the memory of what the terrible extremes of pain I have been in the last couple of years feels like. For this I am grateful. Thank you St. Jude/ANS and Cleveland Clinic!

I feel like Medusa tonight, with the tendrils of pain from The Headache starring as the snakes. I wish I could stare into a mirror and turn myself into stone and then The Headache wouldn't hurt as bad! Of course my head is all bone and no brain anyway so I'm not sure if it was all rock it would be any better.