Neurologists rock! (Or mine do...)

I promised you another migraine update after I saw my neurologist, which I did yesterday. My brains aren't behaving as they should (more here) and so we talked about medications and possible solutions. These are pretty much what we always talk about. I also brought her my new headache calendar.

Her first remark? "Wow. You get a headache everyday. We need to fix that." Yes. Yes we do. But how? First, we're upping my dose of zonegran to a level that's more consistant with stopping migraines. That should kick in in about 3 - 5 weeks. Next, she asked me about jaw and neck pain. Apparently if someone has headaches everyday, they usually have jaw or neck pain. I mentioned that I have a very tight neck, which isn't painful per se, and that I've been having some weird jaw stuff lately. Many people, when they're getting a migraine, get an aura. This is a visual disturbance that signifies that a migraine is coming. Other than a handful of times, I don't get these. Instead, recently with bad migraines, I've been getting aching jaw pain. Just a bit, but enough to let me know I need to get some meds in me and go to sleep before the pain kicks in.

So these things made her suspicious and she started doing a bit of an exam. It was kindof weird, because usually neurologists don't touch you, but she was having me move my head around, feeling my jaw, and feeling my shoulders. The result? My neck movement is slightly limited due to tight muscles. My jaw freaks out when I fully open my mouth (it audibly clicks into place and shifts around and is generally weird). And then she felt my shoulders. Apparently my traps are so tight that my left one feels like it has an egg in it. A HUGE ball of muscle mayham. So all this combined with something my dentist said and my posture, means two things: intense physical therapy with someone who specializes in headaches as well as myofascial therapy (2 times a week for six weeks!) and an appointment with the UMN Oralfacial Pain Clinic.

The final part of our plan is figuring out what I'll do if I have a migraine that my normal meds (imitrex or relpax) can't beat. If I get one during business hours, my neurology office has an "infusion center" where I could go to get medication that is approved by my doctor. This would let me avoid the ER and the random (yet excellent) treatment in the urgent care. And since they're used to treating migraines, they know what they're doing. BUT if the migraine strikes outside of business hours, I have a percocet prescription to take to try and bust the migraine up.

So...that's the current plan. I see the neurologist again in mid-December. (Well, that is the Dr. neurologist. This was the CNP neurologist, who is AWESOME as well.) Hopefully I'll have made progress by then.

Zingerman's

I'm back on the wagon after a day of massive sickness and travel. I got home to a mailbox with a Zingerman's catalog in it. (If you don't know Zingerman's, click on the link...) Ben makes fun of me everytime I read a catalog. I try not to drool, but I always end up saying, "Ohhhh. I want that. And I want that. And that looks good!" I'd heard about Zingerman's for a few years, tried a coffeecake imported, by hand, from Ann Arbor, and last Christmas, decided to splurge.

My family was coming for Christmas. AND I had a coupon. It was obviously a sign that I needed coffeecake, peppered bacon bread, chocolate cherry bread, a chocolate bar, a bacon magnet, and a wedge of piave cheese. Mmm. That was good. But then I was on their mailing list. And the real life mailing list isn't so bad. It's tempting, but you don't get told about sales, etc. The e-mailing list? That broke me. This summer bread was on sale. Like almost as cheap as we buy it at the grocery store (including shipping) but better tasting.

The sneaker is for scale. Big box=lots o'bread.

Oh look! SO MUCH BREAD. (And some peanut butter and a coffeecake.)

This was late July, bread bagged and ready to freeze. (They provide bags and twisty ties.) What haven't we eaten? The lemon poppyseed coffeecake and chocolate sourdough. All the other bread was gone by mid September and the peanut butter disappeared last month. It's probably a good thing I don't live closer to Ann Arbor!

Old Photos

Today I met up with two old friends. We reminisced about college and our awesome sleepover of 2007.

This is how our picture would have looked 100 years earlier.

But this is how we really look...

Mail

Recently, my friends Reid and Erin moved to the East Coast. Reid got himself a real job, which also meant he wasn't on a grad school salary anymore. This means that he had fun mailing me some random packages. Officially they were for Ben, but I wasn't about to carry the second one home after the first arrived.

See the paper? He sent one box just full of paper. (That was the one I carted home on the bus, after carrying it for 15 minutes across campus.) Then I got this box. I opened it. In it was paper...

a tent fly, tent fly stakes, and a ziploc bag containing the top portion of a dried out cow femur. Just want I needed that Friday.

Ben refuses to accept the femur, because he "gave" it to Reid, telling him of his expectations that it would be displayed anytime we visited. Therefore I guess the femur is mine. Thanks Reid?

Homecoming Day 2

I was at the college starting at 7:30am today. I got home around 6:20 and spent most of the day with people. Except my walk back from campus when I called Ben, whose birthday is today. Yay for Ben! He is in the snowy northland and the high here today was 70. :/

Anyways, I have exciting things to say and pictures to post. BUT Julie Stewart has most of the pictures and my brain went to sleep 3 hours ago, so I will just say that the Health Insurance debacle of 2010 was resolved. At least they told my insurance company to reinstate my insurance and it should be back by Tuesday night. YAY!

I plan to be back in full force tomorrow.

Homecoming Day 1

We think hard when we're back at college...

Health Insurance

Yesterday I got a notice that my health insurance was cancelled retroactively back to September 1. After many tears, I sent an email to clarify and learned that it was nothing that was my fault, but rather the people who are supposed to pay my premium hadn't paid it. Another few emails and it's theoretically being taken care of. But that's not why I'm writing.

I had a horrible migraine that was getting worse by the minute and all I could think of was, there's no where I can go for help. I can't afford anything. Already, since Sept 1, my insurance company has been billed more than 25% of my annual income. They probably only paid half that, but still, for me that's a huge sum of money. (I don't earn much, but I've seen a lot of docs and gotten a lot of meds in the past 2 months.) So while I'd normally go to the urgent care, I couldn't. I could've also gotten a refill of a prescription that might have helped with the migraine, but I worried about the $300 price tag. It turned the way I think upside down.

All of a sudden I thought I'd have to cancel my appointment with my neurologist next Wednesday and my physical therapy that afternoon. But how could I handle my migraines without my neurologist? (Seriously, I love my neurologist(s). They rock. Everyone I've interacted with at that clinic is awesome. They even wished me a belated happy birthday the week after my birthday. That's how cool they are.) My mom was reassuring me that everything should be worked out by next week, but the truth of the matter is, without insurance I couldn't get almost any of the care I'm getting. This fall I've seen doctors for three things: migraines, carpal tunnel, and ankle problems. The migraines don't result in many visits, but the visits I have are expensive and the medicine is pricey. The carpal tunnel and ankle problems both resulted in 8+ weeks of physical therapy and the ankle problems also led to me needing new orthotics. So if I didn't have insurance, my vision of myself this fall involves massive amounts of pain, from my head, wrists, and ankles. (Yeah, I know, I'm falling apart...)

I know that I'm lucky. I grew up with health insurance and have never had a day without it (that I know of). That's a lot more insurance than many people I know. But I'd also never envisioned a day without it. The fact that I can't comprehend my life without it is a wakeup call to me, showing me how privileged I am that I can, through the grace of insurance, afford this care. This is not meant to be a political rant, I'm not talking about universal health care. I know that some of you have insurance and some of you don't. And I hope that most of you don't need it very often, but for me it is vital. That's something that I hadn't fully realized until yesterday.

Today

Today I don't want to write anything. It is kindof like the day this picture was taken. It was 2004, I was on my first full day of travelling around Germany. I hadn't gotten my railpass stamped in advance because I didn't know that the train station would be closed until 9am. So I bought a ticket to station 1 (of 4 for the day). They couldn't validate either. They tried to sell me a ticket to Berlin, but I wanted to go in the opposite direction, so I bought a ticket from the machine to get me all the way to station 4. Then at station 2 I had to wait outside for 1 hour in 40 degree temps with lots of wind (note my bangs). That wouldn't be so bad if I had more than just a windbreaker to protect me. But there I sat. Waiting for my train, thinking how much the countryside looked like I imagined East Germany would look, for I was in East Germany. At the end of the day, though, I had a smile on my face as I curled up in my down duvet. I made it to the King's Singers concert with 3 minutes to spare and had a comp ticket waiting for me. Win-win.

Today, not so much on the wins. Both my parents get gold stars for dealing well with a migrainey, teary daughter. Blogging lesson learned: I should really pre-write some blog posts so that I can just press send and not have to write anything on days like today...

Alligator Fears

Long time readers will know that I have a fear of bears. This has been previously documented on this blog. But you may not realize I also have a fear of alligators. And most other things that can kill me. I like to think of this as a healthy fear.

This is how I react to bears. Even when they are behind a fence in the zoo.

This is how I react to alligators at my elbow. Not in a zoo, but a nature preserve. There are no fences.

I have no pictures of me encountering these sorts of animals in everyday life. Most of the vicious creatures I encounter regularly are kindof like this cat below. Her name is Margaret Thatcher, Maggie for short. She can only kill birds and small rodents.

Sometimes I am blown away by the awesomeness of pictures of me pretending to be scared. If you know of a modeling career in this (e.g. victim in some horrible animal-related accident where the photoshoot requires fear and no contact with the animal) please let me know.

Kentucky

I'm headed to Kentucky for a week and am crazy doing laundry and packing, etc. Last time I was in Kentucky, I headed up to Lexington for an afternoon with friends. Lexington has horse around the city like other cities have bears or pigs or other statues. Each is decorated uniquely. So I walked around a corner and saw this horse.

Zoom in?

Yes! That is a binary horse. I did not translate what it said, but I was super psyched to seek the uber-geekiness in the bluegrass.