The Worst Two Weeks Ever

Bipolar-Episode-Migraine-Explosion

I’m lying on a medical table surrounded by men in masks. I’m lying on my stomach and my shirt is pulled up towards my shoulders. The attending nurses are kind but they are too distracted to offer much comfort to me. One is fiddling with my IV and another is murmuring back and forth with the doctor. I feel more scared this time than last because I know what to expect. I know that when the doctor says I’ll feel “slight pressure” it will actually hurt. The doctor talks me thru it just like he did last time. The entire procedure lasts maybe ten minutes.

I have been dealing with a daily headache for five months. The pain inside my head feels like pressure. Like stabbing. Like throbbing. Like swimming too deep underwater. Like a gnawing at the base of my skull. Like an ache behind my eyes. Like a shooting in my temples. Like someone is pressing down too hard on the top of my head. Like pain. Like dizziness. Nothing seems to make it better or worse: nothing. Believe me, I’ve tried everything.

The neurologist suspects a CSF leak, so she ordered a blood patch. Except that it didn’t work. Every day, all day long, a headache. So here I am for the second blood patch. It should work.

Please God. Please God. Please God.

It does not work.

***

Rob and I have a date night after the unsuccessful patch and we opt to go see a movie to get our minds off things. On the drive there, I break down in tears. The blood patch was supposed to be my salvation.

“I can’t live like this,” I cry, snot running down towards my mouth. “I can’t.”

***

Something tells me in my gut that something is causing these headaches. I think about all of the Bipolar medications I’ve been on in the past thirteen years, all the strange symptoms that they have caused. Could it be? I decide to stop my mood stabilizer. I don’t think about how a cold turkey stop could plunge me into an episode…I just want the pain to stop.

***

My appointment with the neurologist seems too far away so I email her assistant; the neurologist squeezes me in during her lunch break. Rob comes with me.

“So we’re treating this like chronic migraines now?” I ask, confused. I’m surprised she’s dropping the CSF leak lead so quickly. It seems so strange.

She all but shrugs. “Yeah.” She starts talking about a daily preventative medication for migraines.

“You cannot get pregnant on this medication,” she says very clearly.

My stomach drops. I look at Rob. I look at the neurologist. “We’re trying for a baby. But okay…We’ll have to stop.”

We go over dosing and I sit there stunned, feeling the exact same way I felt when I got my Bipolar diagnosis. Shocked. Angry. Disbelieving. Except now it’s thirteen years later and we’re talking about chronic pain.

***

Days later and I am curled on the shower floor, weeping. I cannot move. I cannot breathe. I cannot be.

I do not want to live.

Living is unbearable. I cannot bear it. I cannot.

Daggers cut their way through my head, relentless. The pain becomes unspeakable, horrific. The pain is a kidney stone in my brain.

Why did the pain get so bad all of a sudden? Why is the migraine medicine not working? We don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just know it fucking hurts.

***

I zombie my way through each day. I look at my children but I do not see them. I know this kind of depression. It’s familiar. It’s been years, but I remember.

Hours pass, somehow. I take the dog on walks. I lay in bed with ice packs on my head. I imagine all the ways I could end my life.

***

I stop sleeping.

***

“I think I need to go to the hospital,” I tell Rob after I very seriously contemplate suicide. “I think this is the worst day of my life.”

We talk about what it would entail. I’ve been in a psych hospital before; it’s a last resort. I pack a a bag.

Ever so gently, Rob says, “Anna, they won’t take the headache away.”

And it’s then that I know I don’t actually want to kill myself. I just want the pain to be over.

We decide to triage at home instead. I set up frequent counseling, start scheduling with my psychiatrist.

***

The psychiatrist says we need to go back on the mood stabilizer. Wean off slowly. If it has anything to do with the headaches, we will find out with time. We start new meds too.

***

My counselor looks at me from across my computer screen.

I’m in the fetal position in bed, with the computer up by my face. I’m wrapped in my favorite warm fuzzy blanket despite the heat of the day.

My counselor reads the Psalms aloud to me, one after the other, to get me through the hour.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley

I will fear no evil

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever

***

Is it possible that stopping the mood stabilizer put me into some sort of withdrawal? That the headaches are connected somehow and have been all along? That going off cold turkey caused the migraine to go bizerk and my mood to drop simultaneously? It is possible.

Is it possible that I have chronic migraines? Is it possible I just got really really depressed about having this condition? It is possible.

Is it possible I have chronic pain that does not respond to migraine medication? It is possible.

Is it possible that something entirely unknown and unrelated is going on? Is it possible that the neurologist is a flawed human being and is not seeing the whole picture? It is possible.

There’s a lot of unknowns right now.

***

Amidst the pain and depression, I pray.

Lord, help me.

God, help me.

Jesus, be with me.

Maybe I should pray something more sophisticated, but I can’t. It’s all I manage. It helps to know other people are praying on my behalf. I know God hears.

***

When you’re depressed, you have no perspective. You merely survive one day to the next.

***

I don’t think about the fact that we’ve had to stop trying for a baby. I don’t think about all the ovulation strips under my bathroom sink, the pregnancy tests and pee cups. I don’t think about the fact that that’s all come to a screeching halt. Maybe for forever? I don’t think about that now.

***

Rob is my rock. I lean all of my weight upon him, relying on him completely.

***

And then.

The depression lifts, the heavy cloak of despair dissipating into normalcy.

The pain lessens, the familiar throb of the headache of the past six months there once again, no longer severe.

The last two weeks was an absolute shitstorm. What just happened to me? What the hell just happened?

I don’t even know where to go from here. I feel like me again. I mean, I don’t want to kill myself—that’s a start. I can taste happiness, and, oh, how sweet. I feel like I can see my children again; the glaze over my eyes is gone.

And yet my head still hurts. Less, but it’s there. So what now?

I put on makeup and do my hair. I cook dinner for my family. I change a diaper. We plan for a beach vacation with my parents. My head hurts, but I’m here and I’m living.

I’m living.