Operation: Pain Relief

I have been off work for a week.

Last week, about midweek, I started getting headaches in the afternoon. I had been sick for weeks, but I was working on a project at work that I couldn't abandon... and I started loading up on Advil and Coricidin.

I took off Friday at work once the project was put to bed... and I spent much of Friday in bed. Then off to the ER on Saturday, where my blood pressure reading was through the roof. Then bed, bed, bed for days afterward.

The headaches began earlier in the day and lasted longer and were more intense even after starting an antibiotic and Vicodin. I tried to go to work Tuesday but ended up leaving after a couple of hours, in tears.

I started a steroid that same day, and I think finally I might have this sinus infection licked. I'm still in pain, but it is finally bearable.

I remember the day in December 2006 when I woke up in the hospital, groggy from painkillers, to an empty delivery room, in a panic, screaming, "This baby needs to come out NOW!" And repeating that mantra for the next 45 minutes. "NOW NOW NOW! Get it OUT!"

I just spent the past six days in that same mode, with no end in sight, with promises that a few pills here and there would fix the pain.

I wish they gave out epidurals for headaches. I would trade the past six days for a huge needle in the spine and being forced to eject a huge object from a bodily orifice in a moment.