the new normal: life with a blood clot.

Whenever I watch a movie or television show where a character experiences some life-changing event, something that really shakes up their life, I think to myself, "Did they see it coming?" Did they sense anything different in the days or hours or minutes leading up to the seconds that turned their life upside down? Did they sense a change in the wind, a subtle vibration that made their hair rise up and planted a question in their mind?

I don't know about them but for me, I didn't notice a thing. Even up until the very last second, I was completely oblivious and looking back now, it makes me feel like an idiot for not noticing anything at all.

Two weeks ago, on the 22nd of January, I was getting ready to watch the Packers game on television when I got a sharp pain around my belly button. I hadn't eaten anything strange but sometimes I get random pains around my body so I didn't think much of it. As the day progressed, the pain increased and moved up under my ribcage. It was so sharp that it hurt to walk and move around, and I thought maybe I had contracted the stomach flu that was going around. Later in the day, the pain shifted to below my belly button and finally to my right lower quadrant. After having my training in the medical field, I was worried about my appendix, but I didn't have a fever, wasn't vomiting or throwing up, and didn't have any other symptoms, so I brushed it off.

By Tuesday night, the pain hadn't gone away and I was still having difficulty moving around. It hurt with every step, I couldn't bend over, I had to sleep in a completely horizontal position, and sitting on the couch wasn't comfortable no matter how I sat. With much reluctance, I asked my mom to take me to the emergency room.

a health update.

hey everyone.  i have really been struggling with my health for the past few weeks, which is why i haven't been posting very much and commenting on blogs, or been active much online at all.  unfortunately it has been mostly centered around my migraine headaches/problems that i have been having with my eyes, which tends to get worse with using electronics a lot!  a lot of times when i am sick, i just relax on the couch and watch movies or tv, or play games on my phone.  when i am having pain in my eyes (as a lot of you are familiar with), that's the last thing you want to do or even can do, because it makes it a lot worse.  so that's why i haven't been around much.

i have never had "typical" migraine headaches, where you just get bad pain and take some aspirin or whatever and they go away.  ever since i was a teenager, my version of a migraine was where my entire left side of my body went tingly and then numb (leg, arm, face, tongue, etc.), i couldn't see out of my left eye at all, couldn't speak properly, could not think of correct words, vomited excessively -- basically like a stroke.  nothing helped them except for large amounts of sleep, around 12-18 hours, and even after i woke up, i would be in a confused fog for a day or two with severe head and eye pain before i was back to normal.  i didn't know that these wasn't a regular migraine until i started surgical tech school and found out that a "normal" migraine was more of what i considered a regular headache.  at that point, i was only getting them about once every 1-2 years, so i didn't bother going to a doctor because they weren't regularly occurring.

starting about a year ago, i began getting them again.  at first, it was just one, but it was the old kind, where it was stroke-like with all the same symptoms.  i had another one a month later, and then again three weeks later.  i started seeing a neurologist who put me on topamax, but it hasn't been doing much good.  over the course of about six months, i have been increased to taking 75mg both at night and in the morning, and i have a prescription for imitrex to take when i feel a headache coming on, but the imitrex hasn't helped at all, no matter what combination i take it (one now, then another two hours later, two now, then one later, two now then two later, etc).

beginning in march, i started getting just visual auras without a headache.  these are frequently referred to as ocular migraines, and since i have these other migraines (basilar migraines), i am more prone to ocular migraines as well.  my neurologist figured that is what they were, and because i wasn't experiencing pain with them, that was my diagnosis.  at first, they were just pops of color/light and occasionally some flashing lights, with a shimmering cloud.  i had a brain MRI, which came back clean with no brain lesions (which is somewhat unusual for someone who has had the severity of migraines i have from a young age, but i'm not complaining!).

however, in the past 2-3 months, my visual symptoms have increased to a very bothersome level.