Yesterday was one of my bad headache days. I woke with a headache, and none of my medicine helped. I wanted to call in sick and stay home in the dark, but that wasn’t possible. First, I had way too much work to do at the museum. There were deadlines to make, and I’ll have to finish them up today and get things submitted. 

Then, I had to leave early for my post-endoscopy appointment with the ENT doctor, which turned out to basically be a waste of time. She basically told me there wasn’t much that could be done. They could preform a surgery to remove my uvula and my tonsils (a uvulopalatopharyngoplasty or UPPP

), which would open up my throat more. I seem to have an abnormally small throat. (No wonder I can’t deep throat. LOL) She told me that if they did the surgery, which would be an incredibly painful procedure, that it might change the anatomy of my throat enough to make me a better candidate for the Inspire implant, but she needed to confer with her colleagues to see what the probability of success might be. The Inspire surgery is supposed to be a fairly simple procedure, but a UPPP is a much more invasive and involved procedure with a longer recovery time. I’m not sure it would be worth it. My better option is probably to continue to lose weight and hope the sleep apnea improves enough to stop needing the CPAP. 

It’s been a week. I’m glad it’s Friday and that I have a three day weekend. I need some rest and relaxation. Too much had been happening the last two weeks, and I’m tired. I want to go to the grocery store after work today and get some things for a nice BBQ meal on Monday. Cooking almost always relaxes me.

I am being so lame this week. I had another headache last night because there was a rainstorm that came through yesterday, and rain always aggravates my trigeminal neuralgia. So, once again, I remember that I was thinking about writing a post, then I got distracted and went to bed before I actually wrote one. Susan notified me that I had not posted this morning. I had woken up feeling much better had not even thought about not having a post scheduled. 

For the rest of the week, my posts might be a bit short. I am going to a conference in Boston tomorrow and will be gone through Sunday. Thankfully, because I am technically “working” Saturday and Sunday attending the conference, I will be off Monday and Tuesday of next week.

I woke up yesterday still having a headache. It was mostly centered on the base of my skull, but that was pretty painful. I decided I needed to call in sick to work and keep my appointment with the nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office. I’d seen her last Thursday for my pre-op physical and liked her, so when I couldn’t see my regular doctor, I opted for her. After discussing my headache, she said that for headaches like this, they often will give a shot of Toradol to “break up” the headache. Sometimes, they give a strong pain killer to sort of reboot the body and provide some relief, often it’s enough to end the problem, sort of like hitting CTRL + ALT + DELETE on your computer. 

The only problem is that Toradol is an NSAID which I’m supposed to refrain from taking for seven days before my procedure tomorrow. Since the laryngoscopy is not an very invasive procedure, she thought it would be OK to do, but she called my doctor for Friday’s procedure to get her recommendation. While they would have preferred that I only take Tylenol, they did give the NP permission to give a minimal dose of Toradol. So, next thing I know, the nurse has a syringe and told me to lower my pants. She said they could give the shot in the arm, but it works better in the butt, and she said it was up to me. Quite honestly, I wanted whatever was most likely to be successful, so down my pants went. I don’t know if any of you have had a shot of Toradol before (I have), but that shot stings quite a bit.

The good news is that it improved my migraine considerably. Within an hour, the pain was mostly gone. It still hurts a little and I bought some Tylenol as a supplement, and that too helped. I went to bed last night with a minimal headache. I’m hoping I wake up in the morning feeling just as good and can go to work. I’ll learn sometime today when I need to be at Dartmouth for my laryngoscopy tomorrow. All I know at this point is that it is supposed to be sometime tomorrow morning. The past week has been a rough, but I’m hoping this week will end on a good note.

I have a had a severe headache since Friday. The pain has been across the top half of my face, the back of my head, my neck, and shoulders. Sometimes it is only on one side or the other, but mostly both. My head also feels hot, but I haven’t had a fever, nor does it feel hot to the touch. I’ve had nausea and was vomiting Monday night. The pain comes and goes in intensity, but Monday night it got so bad that I contemplated going to the emergency room. The only relief I’ve gotten is when I used a cold pack on the back of my head and forehead and which seemed to relieve things enough for me to fall asleep. Sleep helped a little. Yesterday morning, I felt better when I woke up, but it slowly got worse the longer I was awake.

I took naratriptan as prescribed, but it did not help, and because I have a laryngoscopy on Friday, I have been told to refrain from taking my Anaprox (550 mg naproxen sodium) for 7 days before the procedure. I’m not sure what I can do because this is not my usual headache. The pain though has been unbearable at times.

I went to work yesterday but was only able to stay about two hours before I had to go back home. By mid afternoon, I was feeling relatively normal again, but the headache was back by the time I went to bed. 

I contacted the Headache Clinic yesterday, but the nurse told me that it was unlike my usual headaches that I needed to see my regular doctor. That was a bit disappointing since my regular doctor usually tells me to contact my neurologist at the Headache Clinic. I have an appointment with one of the nurse practitioners at my doctor’s office because my regular doctor doesn’t have anything available until mid June. I’m seeing him on May 4 for a physical, so I’d be seeing him before that. However, the Headache Clinic wants me evaluated again to make sure I’m on to have the laryngoscopy on Friday. If my headache is better today (God willing, it will be), I’ll cancel the appointment with the NP. 

This headache has just been so bad. I thought it was the weather, but this is more than a regular headache affected by weather changes.

ve had a migraine since Friday. I left work early Friday and the migraine lingered all weekend. At times, it wasn’t as painful, but at other times, it was excruciating. Everywhere I laid my head felt like I was lying on a rock. The only thing I could do to help was try and sleep. I hope it’s better today. I’ll be the only one at the museum. Our secretary doesn’t work on Monday, our other curator is away at a conference, and my boss’s two children have COVID.

Programming Note: If I post a poem this week, it will be on Friday, because there’s a lot going on this week.

As you all know, I developed trigeminal neuralgia after I had an abscessed tooth about eighteen months ago. Because of this, wearing my CPAP at night has been continuing to damage my trigeminal nerve. I am in pain any time I put the CPAP mask on, so I’ve been trying for nearly a year to get approved for an Inspire implant that would do the same thing as my CPAP, sort of a pacemaker for my throat, and the only outward part would be a small remote control that I’d use to turn it on when I go to bed and turn it off when I wake up. Back on December 8, I had a new sleep study which qualified me for the implant. My original sleep study showed that my sleep apnea was too severe for the implant, but sleep apnea can be greatly improved by a 10 percent weight loss. I have lost over 25 percent of my total weight, and after the news sleep study, my sleep apnea had improved enough for me to qualify for the Inspire implant.

With that hurdle passed, I went to see an ENT doctor for a consultation about the Inspire implant. I found out from her that I had one more hurdle to cross to qualify for the Inspire therapy: a sleep induced endoscopy, technically a laryngoscopy because they’ll be looking at my throat only, not my stomach. In this laryngoscopy, I’ll be put to sleep so the doctor can see if my throat closes front to back or from side to side. If it closes front to back (I think that the right one), then I’d be qualified for the Inspire surgery.That ENT appointment was on January 10, and I have been waiting to be scheduled for the laryngoscopy. Finally, the ENT’s office called and scheduled the laryngoscopy for the morning of April 29. My boss will take me down to the hospital and bring me back.

I have to see my doctor for a pre-op physical, and so, I called my doctor’s office to schedule the physical. I have a regular physical schedule for May 4, but I need a pre-op physical no later than April 25 because of the laryngoscopy. Sadly, my doctor is booked, but I will be seeing one of the other providers. They’d suggested one, but I told them no, that I would not see her. I’ve had issues with this particular nurse practitioner, and I refuse to see her again. Considering that she always seems to be the one with open appointments and that the office doesn’t even blink an eye when I say I won’t see her, I’m guessing others have the same complaint. So, they scheduled me with another nurse practitioner. I’m not happy that I can’t see my doctor, since he knows my medical history best, but it’s just a physical.

I feel like I have been waiting so long, and I guess, I have. Please pray that I can get over this last hurdle and get the implant. It will take a few more months after the endoscopy for the implant surgery, but things finally seem to be moving along.

I’m still packing and getting ready for the movers to come at 8 am tomorrow. So much to do before then…

I was feeling a bit sick last night. I had a low fever, a headache, and a prickly, burning sensation on the back of my neck. I’m not sure what caused the issue on the back of my neck, but I suspect the fever and headache had to do with some sinus trouble. Anyway, I went to bed early last night.

About a month ago, I spent two hours in a dental chair so my dentist could prepare a tooth for a crown. At that time, he put a temporary crown on the tooth while the permanent one was made. Yesterday, I went to get the permanent crown. At the first visit, they’d numbed me up, took an impression, did a lot of drilling, took another impression, and then put in the temporary crown. Yesterday’s procedure was much simpler and only took about thirty minutes. He didn’t have to numb me, which I hate, but that meant there was a modicum of pain associated with yesterday’s procedure. He had to remove the temporary crown which is not exactly pleasant. Then, he had to clean up the tooth and prepare it for the permanent crown, which was popped into place. Easy peasy, or so you’d think. In fact, the procedure was pretty easy. However, when you already have nerve damage in that area (i.e., trigeminal neuralgia), it doesn’t take much to set those nerves on edge. By the time I got home, I had a raging headache that lasted all night.

If any of my readers are dentists, forgive me for what I’m about to say, but how can someone get paid so much to torture people all day long? I’m sure there are some people who don’t think of the dentist as a torturous event, but they wouldn’t be me. Those same people probably don’t have trouble teeth like I do. I’ve always had soft teeth. It’s hereditary in my family, so no matter what I do to take care of my teeth (brushing, flossing, etc.) I still have cavities broken teeth. Thankfully, skilled dentists can fix all of that, but it’s still torture to have it done. I like my dentist a lot, and I’ve had some great dentists in my life, but just because they are nice people doesn’t mean I don’t feel like they torture me. I know they usually do whatever they can to make it as painless as possible, but I still hate going to the dentist. Whether it’s a routine cleaning and exam or a filling or a crown, I always leave in pain. Oh well, what can you do?