State Fair

Well we had a great time going to see Brandi Carlile. I had one stabbing incident that lasted about a minute. When I am not in pain I forget I ever had it and then all of the sudden I get a reminder that this exists and could ruin the one day I was looking forward to for over 3 months. The pain was Pretty strong but very brief , I had to just focus and breathe through it. Then it was gone.  I had a bad headache most all the day before in the same spot. A Little aching today - quite tired! Over all I'd say the pain is getting less or I'm getting more used to it.  I'm going with less.

Saturday, August 28,  today awoke with a bad eye head ache.  Can't shake it.  it's the normal trail that runs under the eye to the top of the ear.  Can't wear sunglasses today makes it worse.
Drugs here I come...

My head says No! My heart says GO!

My brother and his wife are killing me!

Just joking.  But they keep talking to me on the phone and Skype late at night and I'm not getting to sleep.  We're having too much fun talking. Last night I didn't get to sleep til 1:30 a.m. then had to get up early as I have company and had to go clean a house by myself. See, they're leaving soon to go be missionaries so we feel like we have to talk a lot before we can't talk at all. Plus life is pretty crazy for them right now so there's a lot to talk about.

Problem is, is that when I'm tired like this "me eye" hurts.  ( I write this with my Popeye voice) 

Now I have a decision to make,  do I drive down this weekend to M.O. for their massive going away party or do I stay with my plans to go the state fair with my 3 friends and see one of my favorites, Brandi Carlile? Every year we go to a concert at the fair. Last year we went to Jackson Browne at the State Fair and that's when my whole eye blog really began as I remember Mayo trying to get me on the schedule but I said no the first time because I had this concert I was going to.

My head says no, my heart says go.  We all know what the bible says, "The heart is treacherous who can know it?' jere 10:23?

My head says I'll be too exhausted and my whole body is going to pay for this if I go. Plus it will cost me more $$ if I go.And I'll have to miss Nancy's big  oncology appointment Monday.  But my heart says, they're leaving and I don't want to regret not going.  Plus when I typed out a message telling them what my dilemma was,  Jason was like, "yes! Come!"  UGH.  It's not that easy.  But I feel like I'm loosing my twin forever, the only person in the whole world who really gets me.  

It doesn't help I am surrounded by cerebral people.  I don't want regrets people!  What is the right thing to do? I want to do both.  Maybe I'll have to get skype on my phone so I can see them all that day at their party.

(Oh, and on a side note unrelated. this morning I had this strange hot burning chest pain for about 45 sec. in a small spot when I rolled over in bed.  I wanted to write it down so that I could come back and pin point this day if I needed too. my aunt has a similar pain years back and that's when the cords around her mitral valve 'broke')

darn photos

What a great day we had yesterday, long but great.  My two good friends and I headed out early for the Minneapolis Farmers market (mlpsfarmersmarket.com) My goal for the day was to eat as much roasted sweet corn as possible.

 Why am I posting this on my blog?  Well, this photo is fine, I'm actually tilting to the Right!  Which is good.
Now the next photo, is not the best. But at the time of taking it, I consciously thought, " Look, Kari is tilting and for once I am not"  Then I looked through the photos later and Nope!  I'm tilting.  UGH.  I hate that. But oh well.

Desire for Normalcy

Just a note here for tracking purposes.  I've been feeling an episode coming on now for a few days.  This morning I laid in bed, awake but my eyes closed, as I often do because they are so dry I don't enjoy opening them. But I almost always(since surgery) awake to discomfort in my eyes that usually goes away as soon as I get out of bed. but today the pain was like a hot knife in my sup. obliq.  Not a steak knife more like a broad butter knife :0
Now it's noon and i Have to run to work but I have the 'headache' under my eye and to the top of my ear.  And my occipital bone still hurts on the left but in all fairness it did stop for a few days. When I'm tired I tilt- no biggy. just tracking. It's been a while now since I have not had a headache.  Mostly it's been the left occipital thing. I don't think I will ever not feel my eyes, all I can hope for is not to be distracted by the feeling. Today, it's a bit distracting.
8/23/10 FMI - Never did get a huge episode.  Maybe it's starting to fizzle?  Although, tonight I am very tired again and have pain when tired.

"Keep your eye Simple"

 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If, then, your eye is simple, your whole body will be bright;"

(Matthew 6:22)

This was the theme scripture yesterday at the Kingdom Hall.  Of course the scripture is figurative and talking about keeping a simple life and how much happier your life will be.  The speaker compared this to the literal eye and how if things are not in focus you get headaches from eyestrain etc. etc.  But I thought this scripture summed up how I feel about my eyes.  Now they are "simple" or focused and my whole outlook feels "bright".

There is a lot of scriptures about Jesus healing the blind.  On one occasion he healed a man blind from birth, and told him to tell no one.  Well the man was so grateful he didn't care and told everyone even though it meant he'd be removed from the synagogue. He couldn't deny what miracle had happened and was so grateful to have his vision back he wanted to tell everyone about Jesus.  That's how I feel esp eariler. I'm so grateful I can't keep quite.

Seeing Double

It's so much fun to see a double rainbow. It makes me smile.  I'm seeing double, in a good way.

Time to heal

It's been a good long weekend. We went to our convention in Rochester.  My eye behaved. My left side head ache was better but the actual spot where the occipital bone meets the neck smarts like you know what.
I can't believe how long it took me to recover from this surgery. Not just physical pain but I think I learned more about myself mentally this time than physically.  I know that sounds strange but It took me this what 8 or 9 months to untangle from the past 10 years of eye trauma.  Which I didn't even know what trauma til this year.
At the time of the writing of this post I am more than extremely tired and have a week ahead of me unlike most.  But The past month or so I've been thinking how I've come to peace with Egbert and the past - I'm not as worried about the future of my eyes and if they'll need surgery. I just so clearly remember the day after surgery telling Holmes, " Yea, we're going to try to do this in a week because I have things to do, like take care of my friend with pancreatic cancer,"  HA!  9 mo. later!  I'm still 'healing' And still taking care of my friend, who by the way is entering what I call the tail spill.  Let's just see how well the pain stays away with the amount of fatique I think we're about to experience seeing Nancy through to the end.
For now though I see the light at the end of the eye tunnel. And the light is not a train.  Maybe I'll still have my pain episodes but whatever, I can deal with that.

As rough as yesterday was...

Today is much better.  My 6 day headache has been broken! Yippy Skippy.  It's still sore but we're headed the right direction.
My nerve pain on the right side that was so bad yesterday is, at the moment, gone.  Even last night when I went to bed I took two ibuprofen wondering if I should take another dilaudid, as I was in pain, but I chose not to.  That was the point of the ONE dilaudid I took earlier.  My hope was to hit the pain hard and break the cycle.  I think it's working.  We'll see though.  IT likes to hit with out a lot of warning.
But whew! Glad that passed.

8/4/10 - Shouldn't speak so soon.  The left Occiptal headache is back.  Man! I only got one day off.  Besides the pain I just wonder, "is my head tilting again?"  This is my old head tilt head ache.  I don't need this back. This is like old times.  The kicker is also how much time and money I throw at the pain and still it lingers. I'm a little frustrated.  But it's still better than nerve pain.

Come on Comet!

So I went to see Jeremy today he helped the pain on the left side of my head but as he was working about 45 min into my massage, he had my head turned to the right for a long time and then all of the sudden the nerve pain started on the right. It took about one minute for it to fully develop.  This one was bad. Worst one since April.Probably an 7.5 on the pain scale. I felt sick to my stomach, felt like crying,  almost immediately.  Jeremy could tell the pain shifted. Pretty interesting with out me telling him cuz I didn't want to hurt his feelings like he caused it. This was a bat to the head.

I got a pedicure after my massage. The head ache wained a bit then surged.  I went to the chiropractor after that and had him work on it. That helped while the needles were in but pain was very bad on the drive home.  So I went home and took a dilaudid.  Pain subsided mostly for a a couple hours but this warm fuzzy pain is still there.  

I don't really understand, I'm not sure if it's TN or just freak of nature stuff. Thank Goodness for Dilaudid. I don't itch from it either.

Day 5

This morning marks the beginning of yet another day with this headache.  I don't think it's my TN.  I think it's my occipital plate ( This is what I call it anyway)  I need to go see if the chiro can get it back in again tomorrow.  I'm also going to get a massage tomorrow.
This is the kind of head aches I used to have all the time before eye surgery. So I'm paranoid if I'm tilting again.  But someone took my photo yesterday and it didn't jump out at me that my head was tilted. So that's good.