the worst headache of my entire life - yeah, it's a fun post

On Thursday morning, I woke up with a headache - or rather, a headache woke me up. It felt like another cluster headache, but since I'd just had one recently, I was worried it was the start of a cycle. Time to get to the doctor. First, though, I had to throw up. A couple of times. It was loud enough to wake my room-mate - who graciously volunteered to take me to the doctor if I could get an appointment in the morning. I called into work and left a message, then called the doctor's office and made an appointment for about 1/2 hour later.

Then began the longest car ride of my life. Instead of getting better after throwing up, I got worse. Much, much worse. I was weeping by the time we finally got to the doctor's office and went downhill from there.

My motor skills shut down and I had no balance or strength. In a few minutes the sensitivity to light had overwhelmed me and I nearly collapsed.

The next time period is... vague. I remember trying to answer questions and follow commands, but even though I thought I understood things, my responses were coming up as gibberish. I apparently got a couple shots in the butt, had a hospital gown put on me, and had a cat scan taken. No memories of those things. I do remember them trying to take my temperature, but I couldn't even follow those simple commands. Apparently, about the only things I said that made sense were the swearing - which I feel really bad about.

Finally, whatever it was, passed. The initial results of the cat scan indicated a stroke - but they gave me some cognition tests that I managed to reboot myself into working through. My head still hurt so bad to lift it up that on one of the tests I leaned forward just enough to see the board, then leaned back and described it from memory.

I had since been transfered from the doctor's office to the hospital in the same building - but they didn't have the facilities to really help me out. So, I got transfered again to another hospital and got stuck in the emergency room for several hours. I wasn't allowed water or food and they took a lot of blood for tests. There were several waves of cognition tests and finally I was taken up to a room. More blood - some really wretched "safe food" after a swallow test - and finally lights out. My room-mate had been on the phone to get everyone in the loop and my co-workers, my parents, and my sister and brother-in-law were planning on coming up on Friday. I was awakened every couple of hours for more tests - then in the morning I had an MRI, an EEG, and a vascular ultrasound. I had a surprisingly good late breakfast, then my family arrived along with one of my co-workers. Found out that my sister had awakened not long before I did on Thursday morning and knew something was wrong, but not what. She stayed up and played playstation till she got the news.

The neurologist stopped by in the early afternoon and said that he thought that the initial dianosis of a stroke was wrong since they couldn't find anything. He said it was most likely, "just a migraine". The rest of my co-workers arrived and we talked for a bit. I still had a bit of a headache, but I was in good spirits.

So, with a suggestion that I carry a mega-dose of Motrin with me at all times, I was discharged. My co-workers headed out and my parents followed my room-mate and I back to our place. I got cleaned up and we went out to lunch. We did a little shopping while I tried to gauge my recovery. We had dinner with them before they headed home and I went to bed.

At 4:30 Saturday morning, I woke up again with a headache. I took a couple Motrin and went back to sleep for 6 hours. Then woke up, took 4 more, then slept until evening. Even still, the headache lingered until late in the evening. It was gone this morning, but a coughing spell brought back a trace.

So, not a stroke. Which is good news, especially since I'm only 34. And yet, I find it a little difficult to believe it was just a migraine. I was gone, and I scared a lot of people with my behavior. Looking back, I had all the symptoms of a stroke and chalking up the "mis-read" of the cat scan to improper positioning on the scanner seems a little off.

I'm still a little off - still a little not back in gear with the world. I'm going to try and go to work tomorrow and see how it goes. And I'm going to have flowers sent to the nurse I swore at when the bottom fell out.

It may be the single weirdest time of my life so far. Thanks to everyone who helped me through it and who visited me in the hospital. And especially to my room-mate, who got way more than he bargained for when he volunteered to take me to the doctor's office.

And that's about it for now... later.