I’m still in pain. Things haven’t improved at all. If anything they’re worse.
I have been taking Topamax for three weeks. You have to ease on to it. I am presently taking 3/4ths of the maximum dose. Next Tuesday I’ll start taking the maximum dose. But there’s no improvement. Fortunately, however, pop now tastes good again. Pop tasted really terrible for the first few days after I started taking Topamax, but it wore off. And no more acne, thank goodness. I’ve always had really nice, clear, peaches and cream skin and the dozens of zits that broke out overnight, especially at my age (25) were disgusting and disheartening.
I’ve had an MRI and an MRA also (that’s where they look at the arteries in your head) but haven’t gotten the results back yet. I was supposed to have both tests on the same day — last Friday — but somehow the MRA did not get entered into the computer in spite of the fact that I personally stood there at the counter 18 inches away from the secretary and watched her schedule it. I don’t know what went wrong. When the hospital told me the MRA was not scheduled, I became hysterical and started cussing and sobbing and weeping etc., saying I’d been in pain for months and no one knew why, I wanted these tests done today because I wanted answers, etc etc etc. They were very sorry but there was nothing they could do. I got the MRA on Monday instead. It was much like the MRI, except shorter. They stuck me in the tube and told me to lie still, there was a godawful racket, and after a few minutes they pulled me out and told me to go home.
The MS Contin (morphine) isn’t working so well anymore. I wasn’t having any horrible suicide headaches, but I was in a lot of pain more or less all the time. I concluded I had developed a tolerance to it. I called Dr. Easley’s office this morning and told the nurse about all of the above. She called back an hour later and told me Dr. Easley had prescribed a double dose of morphine and also recommended I call the neurologist and tell her about the pain and the fact that after three weeks the Topamax wasn’t working. The thing is, the insurance won’t pay for the new MS Contin script till tomorrow. But that’s okay. I’ll just take two pills of the old script tonight, instead of one.
So I will now be taking 60 mg of morphine a day: 30 in the morning, 30 in the evening. One step closer to becoming an addict and writing my own version of Confessions of an English Opium Eater someday. Lovely. (When I had to read that book for a college English class, and write a response paper on it, my paper’s thesis was that the author, Thomas de Quincey, was an egotistical jerk. I cited examples from the text to prove what a jerk he was. I got an A.)
After I spoke to Dr. Easley’s office I called the neurologist’s office and left a message and told them all of the above, except the MRI/MRA which the neurologist already knows about, since she’s the one that’s supposed to read them and tell me the results. And make it snappy. It’s been a week, woman!
At this point it would almost be a relief to find out I had a brain tumor. “A tumor! Great, you know what it is! You can take it out, then? When can you schedule my surgery?” A tumor is, at least, something that can be dealt with. Instead, I and my doctors are fighting this unknown and unknowable thing that has proven impervious to all medical weaponry used thus far.
I’m pretty sure it’s not a tumor, anyway. So is everyone else. They know what it is not. They just don’t know what it is.
I would dearly love, I desperately want, just one day where my head did not hurt at all. Just one day is all I’m asking. One. Fracking. Day. I don’t even remember what that feels like anymore.
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