Brush with Death.

The past few days havc been touch and go, folks. Mild brush with death, I would even venture to say. But don't worry-I have emerged from my trip into darkness virtually unscathed, although I feel certain that I used up two or three of my alleged nine lives. (Oh wait, that's just cats. I'm superhuman so I'm sure I have more.)

I began to develop this awesome headache on Thursday morning as I was sitting in Tracy's office having a brainstorming meeting. I could feel this one muscle on the left side of my neck tensing, and by 2pm I couldn't turn my head at all, to which I excused myself from the office to go lay in a dark room and fight the impending migraine that invariably was developing. And as I lay in my bed so miserable I couldn't move or function, I decided that I probably needed a massage. Why not? It's not like things could get any worse...

And so I put on dark sunglasses, sweats, and ventured to Massage Envy in Cherry Creek where I had a delightful massage therapist work on my back and neck. There were lots of "ooohs" and "hmmmms" and "uh oh... am I hurting you?" Honestly, people, it's a good thing that my arms were under the covers because otherwise I was truly frightened that I would come up swinging. It was maybe the most painful experience of my life (aside from the appendix experience, of course) and at the end she closed with, "Yeah, you're going to need more than one massage to get through all of that tension..." I laughed, paid, and left. Good luck, lady.

Over the weekend I was essentially sore to the touch, and had a slight headache that just lingered, and I still couldn't turn my head too well, but it was bearable. Until Sunday afternoon, that is.

I went to bed at 6:30 Sunday night- that's how obnoxiously painful my head was feeling. All was well until I woke up at 1am with my head splitting, the kind of pain that makes you want to climb the walls, or hurt yourself so as to detract from the pain you are already feeling. So I clasped my head in my arms, rolled around, and tried not to scream and wake up my roommates. After rolling around for an hour I eventually went downstairs where I turned on a season of Grey's Anatomy and hid my head under my comforter because the light from the TV was too bright. I also had one eye that wouldn't stop watering- it was out of control.

I managed to dose for two separate hours, during which I had a dream about committing a pre-meditated murder with a steak knife (which, by the way, scared me to death and I woke up ni a full sweat, shaking) and another where I was getting an Alpha Phi tattoo and I kept intentionally moving my body so the needle would break off under my skin. Pleasant, I agree.

Anyway, by 5:30am I had decided... I was going to the doctor. ASAP. This is a big breakthrough for me because I NEVER go to the doctor, unless I have gangrene or something is internally exploding. But so I called my fabulous doctor's office... the marvelous Dr. Davidson... and shockingly enough, when their office opened at 8:30am someone actually called me back! I'm pretty sure that no one from a doctor's office has ever returned my call before, so I was overjoyed. And 10:30 it was.

So I went to Dr. Davidson's and she's so fabulous. She's one of those doctors who actually listens to you and is very interested in actually fixing the problem. So I was overjoyed when she turned out the lights, told me to lay down, gave me a shot of toradol, one of steroids, and hooked me to an oxygen tank and told me to lay there for forty minutes. Amazingly enough, it helped! The headache was probably 65% gone by the time I left! And then she wrote me prescriptions for Darvocet (JMU girls, you remember how well I tolerate that!) and a muscle relaxer. Geez, why coudln't I have met this woman years ago? Could have saved me a LOT of time, money, and pain!

So anyway, after the injections and a dose of Darvocet, I was thankfully able to work all day yesterday. That was great news. Things are very busy at CAMPUSPEAK right now- lots of changes and adjustments, and excitement! I'm just glad I made it through to the other side. To all of my friends, I give my love. It was a close one.