A Royal Pain in the Neck

Usually just a metaphor; this one put me in the hospital

Photo by John Bell on Unsplash

So it started with a blistering headache way more than a week ago. I don’t get headaches. Almost never. Maybe a slight one if I’ve decaffeinated for too long, but never like this. My head tingled. Then it hurt. My follicles hurt. My ears hurt. My neck hurt. And because I’d just moved here and didn’t have a doctor yet, I ignored it except for taking Tylenol. Allergies, no doubt. New place, new pollens. But it didn’t go away.

So last Tuesday, thanks to the nagging of my kids downstate, I went to Urgent Care. They gave me muscle relaxers for my neck and kind of dismissed the whole headache thing. I barely slept and the next day I could barely move.

When my daughter drove up from downstate that afternoon I finally had to admit that I was pretty sick. I was weak, not eating, not drinking, and so the next morning we went to the ER.

My BP was 62/48. Severely dehydrated. They did a cat scan of my head and a chest Xray and found I had pneumonia turning into sepsis. The cat scan was clear, thank goodness, but they had no explanation for my headache. Somebody decided it could be my sinuses. Or pollen allergies.

They put me on a fluid drip and kept me overnight for observation and when my BP rose and there were no other symptoms except the headache, they sent me home, making me promise I would drink a third of my weight in water each day. (As if!)

The next morning I was back in the ER. My headache was excruciating and all I really wanted from them were STEROIDS. I did what they tell you not to do: I went on the internet. I Googled, “Why does my head hurt when I touch it?” and I scrolled through a bunch of stuff until I came to something called “Giant Cell Arteritis”. I had to laugh. It sounded like something out of a bad science fiction movie, but there they were: almost every symptom, except for fever, but including bulging veins at my temples. All there. And the cure? Steroids.

So I repeated to two of them—separately—what I’d found on the internet. (Telling them first, “You’re going to hate me for saying this, but I went on the internet…”. ) And I told them what I found. They both—separately—nodded dismissively and then called it something else, telling me the testing for that requires a biopsy.

No. I knew that wasn’t right. But they did do bloodwork, they did give me steroids, and within three hours my headache was completely GONE.

So now I’m at home recovering, I’m on antibiotics and steroids and there are moments when I feel like Superwoman. Especially at three o’clock in the morning. But I’m recovering.

My daughter is here watching over me, and she nags politely enough that I’m allowing her to stay for a while. I have managed to give a nod or two on Notes, so you probably didn’t even notice that I hadn’t written a blog for a while. I didn’t want to write this one, but I seem to be in the habit now of writing about my life and this has been my life for what seems like an eternity now.

I’ll be fine. I didn’t think so last week, but this week I’m back to thinking positively. One day at a time. One of my very favorite cliches.

I sincerely hope you’re all well.

One word: hydrate!

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