First a punch to the left - then a punch to the right, another hook to the right, quickly back to the left temple and she’s down for the count… Over the roar of the angry mob you can hear the soft voice of the ref counting through the din of pain and terror as you ask yourself, why me? How did I get here? One minute I was smelling the roses and then … you remember you hear the Ref counting … “1”, “2”, “3”, “4” … And Yes, she’s back on her feet and the crowd in her head roar their angry “Boo’s” at her from the stands.
Well, an interesting start to the day. I am now wearing my happy hat. One day I will take a photo of my happy hat, it looks like a woollen (“beanie” in Aussie) winter hat that has fluorescent pink braids down each side. I look like my favorite kind of idiot 
… ME!! But hey, whatever works hey. When I thought I was well last Friday night and went out to my Dogs Agility class on a reasonable winter night - it was cold enough for gloves as well, but I don’t own any of those yet. Something I might buy today. Winter Horse riding gloves would be best, at least they give some grip on the palms.
On Friday AM, I’d gone to my country ER because of such monster pains - they gave me my bandaid temporary fix of getting that shot of Toradol (AKA “Ketorolac”), and I’d needed a 2nd injection of this by 4pm Friday afternoon because the attack was just biding time till the Toradol wore off - it wore off just 4 hours after I’d had the first injection. But you cannot get more than 1 injection within an 8 hour time frame.
So, even though I was then feeling great - I later decided that going to Agility class in Winter was a huge mistake, I had to come home because of rapid successive painful sensation of having both sides of my face connected to a live electrical wire. My best friend made the comment that the cold made her face ache “also”. I had no reply for her then. I thought she understood what TN does to us. But, I guess I was wrong. She did have a clever answer for maybe I should buy a balaclava so I could wear that to night time training. But I don’t think they come in rainbow colours. So it looks like, so long as it remains cold - that is just another part of my life I have to deny of myself.
Ok, so it’s been 10 days & four hours since my last bit of monster free time. That free time had lasted 3 whole days and in my 3 day pain free existence - guess what I accomplished. Not a whole lot. I want to change my outlook, to be able to take advantage of “normalcy” when it comes. It’s just hard to recognize this supposed “normalcy” because, honestly ~ what it normal?
It seems to me, that many of what I had considered normal behaviors for me, are potential triggers to awaken the monster. If I’m quick and I swallow around 5 or 6 possible medications - then the monster may quieten and settle into the background for maybe just 1 hour of those meds effectiveness. This firstly means, that where ever I go, so do my Meds. My Mom bought this me this huge handbag, so my meds that I carry in a school lunch box type thing, so people think it’s food and not a store case of nasty medications…
I need a bigger hand bag.
But it’s not all bad news. The Saturday morning after the previous nights training, I was at my rural Doctors office by 11 am and got them to give me one of my own Toradol ampoules that I keep for emergencies. In case I can’t get to the hospital in time. Excuse my language please - but oh God, that was such a relief.
This past week, because the pain often keeps me awake most nights and I’m finding myself suffering instead of sleeping - I decided to sleep from lunch time Saturday, and woke around 3pm. I awoke to - you guessed it - the Monster once again. I felt like screaming. Both my ears felt like they were totally compressed, like someone was trying to squeeze my brain bits out through the ear canal or kind of like knitting needles pushing outwards from inside my brain. That had to be one of my more horrid moments.
Within minutes, I had pain in my right temple, cheek, jaw bone, neck and a developing band of pressure that extended 180 degrees around the back of my head from ear to ear. That pain and pressure extended down my neck around the cervical spine. This kind of pain as you’d appreciate - is where you feel you’ve gotten to the point that would you please just rather someone knocked you unconscious rather than have to deal with it.
I got myself together and drove the 30 minutes to the country hospital. I get seen to reasonably quickly there so it’d seemed a safer choice than the city hospital that was an hour drive from my home.
The country hospital doctor on call - when I saw who he was, I just nearly collapsed. This “doctor” is my nemesis. He does not believe I could possibly even have TN, as at 36 years of age - I’m too young. Add to that, I’m bilateral - so even though statistics say any age can get this - even with TN only 5% have TN bilaterally. His standard answer now is to NOT provide me with the Toradol that gives me relief - (in case you’re wondering - Toradol / Ketorolac is an injection of a hospital strength anti-inflammatory medication that has some sort of other property in it that takes my TN pain and covers it like a bandaid fix for a while. But it takes this pain from me within 2 minutes!!)
Toradol is not an opiod. Toradol is not addictive any more than an ibuprofen is addictive.
But Dr (Richard Cranium) here refuses my treatment - but did give me a packet of 10 x 400mg Brufen caplets to take home and “get some sleep”. I asked, could this pain also be part of my Neuralgia - he yelled at me ~ “NO!”
[It’s less than half hour till my appointment with my Disability Employment network lady - so I must go as it takes half hour to get there. And I’m still sitting here typing - I’ll save it here as a draft and return to finish it off later.]
Well, now it’s 13 hours later and I am now in too much pain to continue whatever it was I wanted to say… Sorry… Just blogging away… I need to start a new post as this pain is developing into some of the worst pain I’ve ever had…