As I drop to my knees and grab my head, I can’t even comprehend what has happened.
“A bad migraine?”
“I mean, I’ve had them before, but none like this. This was different.”
To make matters worse, I was at my brothers lacrosse provincials… 4 hours away from home! When we got home, we scheduled a doctors appointment immediately. Unfortunately, my GP was out of town, so I ended up seeing some random doctor.
“My right ear hurts and my temple is throbbing with pain. It’s like someone is stabbing me in the side of my head,” I say.
“You’ve had a history of hormonally induced migraines, right?”
“Well yes, but this is different; I can’t explain it.”
“We will start you on Naproxen 550. You can take one every 6 hours.”
Needless to say, I was not sure what was happening. It had been two weeks since the pain started and I felt like someone was sitting on the right side of my face with knives attached to their butt. We left for the camping trip we had planned for that summer and I was not sure how I was going to cope with the pain. Being that far away from a doctor frightened me. I remember feeling bad that I was not outside sitting around the campfire with friends, but the air hurt me. Everything hurt me. I just sat inside the bath in our trailer with a cold beer pressed against my head (we didn’t have ice packs).
When we got back, my GP was still not back from holidays. I ended up seeing another random doctor. She thought it was allergies, even though my sinuses were clear! She ended up getting very off topic, but in the end prescribed me two different types of allergy pills and a nasal spray! I tried to be nice, but she was a nutcase.
Finally, my doctor came back! He took me off the allergy stuff and put me on a less-harsh pain pill. He also prescribed me the medication that worked when I had migraines in the past. Two weeks later, when the medication hadn’t touched it, he put me on Topamax. Here’s where the fun begins…
I had noticed a little numbness in my extremities. My doctor assured me that was normal. I was doing my volunteer work at the hospital early one morning and ended up dropping a whole bunch of ice water! I told my partner that I hadn’t been feeling well lately and that the medication I was on had some side effects. He told me he would cover for me and that I should go home. So I did.
3 hours later…
“Mom, I can’t feel the right side of my body!”
“Alright, we are going to the hospital.”
In the end, I went off the medication. The next time I had an attack, we drove 2 1/2 hours to the Calgary Children’s Hospital. And that’s how I got a neurologist.
To be continued…