I didn’t run the July 4 8K today for the first time in ever because my stupid five-week migraine prevented me from training

And it was soul-suckingly humid this morning, so I didn’t think it would be a good idea to try and power through it. But Facebook made a point of reminding me of a bygone day of 8K running and personal besting (8:32 pace!) and 32-inch waisting. So there’s that.

Walgreens run!

ONE: The good news is our smoke detectors are capable of blasting sound to every corner of the house.

The other good news is it’s not a house fire that alerted us to this fact.

The bad news is (at least) one of the batteries died in (at least) one of the smoke detectors scattered around the house and its little chirpy alerts so effectively broadcast that news that we can’t pinpoint which one (or ones) is (or are) doing all that GODDAMN CHIRPING.

So ... it’s Everybody Gets A New Battery Day!

TWO:I just had the neurologist appointment that I scheduled three weeks ago at the height of my headache nightmare, and he officially undiagnosed my occipital neuralgia and told me I’d just experienced a plain old boring migraine. Which is so unglamorous that it robs me of the sense of exotic purpose to which I’m entitled. Anyway, he said that for now I should just keep plain old boring OTC migraine medicine on hand to stop the next one (because apparently there will be many more next ones) when it starts and to call him if things get worse.

THREE:No trip to Walgreens even counts if you don’t leave with a package of Chips Ahoy!

I had to cancel yesterday’s run because I had a pretty epic headache relapse that kept me in bed until noon

And because my hair looked too nice for my ritual selfie. Thankfully the headache dissipated as quickly as it powered up and I was able to go to work and paint woodwork and swoon over Corey Booker.

But now my head feels great and my hair is a disaster (coincidence?) and it’s life-suckingly humid and I have three miles to run!

I canceled my trip to the pain clinic last week because my headache pain was (and still is!) virtually gone

I decided to keep my ophthalmologist appointment today though because 1) I’m waaaaay overdue for an eye appointment anyway and 2) it took forever to get on the schedule and 3) ophthalmologist is fun to spell. Ophthalmologist! See?

So I’m here and artfully masking the signs for the ladies’ bathroom in my selfie and moments away from getting to tell people that I’m dilated to meet them.

Ophthalmologist!

Occipital Nomorealgia!

So today--after this epic, never-ending headache that started May 17 and necessitated weeks of checkups and tests and more checkups and finally a referral and then 10 days of waiting to get on the schedule--I was FINALLY going to be visiting the St. Luke's pain clinic for a nerve block ... literally as I'm writing this. But suddenly on Monday I felt remarkably better. Which may or may not have had a correlation to my first distance run of the summer that morning. And by Tuesday morning I felt so much better that I figured it would be pointless to go to a pain clinic. So I apprehensively called to cancel my long-awaited appointment.

And here I am: not at my long-anticipated pain clinic appointment and feeling relatively great (my ears are still quietly ringing and my eyes have a twinge of pain when I think about them, like right now--so stop making me think about them!) (oh--and did I mention I'm old so there's always a pain somewhere?). I like to think that my cancellation got some other poor in-pain soul into the clinic sooner than he or she was expecting. And the nurse I talked to said the referral is still active for three months, so I can get in without jumping through all the hoops if it flares up again. And then the billing department called me to warn me that my insurance doesn't cover visits to pain clinics so I should start selling organs to cover the epic-pain-inducing costs.

And even though I truly love my job and look forward to coming into work every morning, I can honestly say I've never been more happy to be here, considering the alternative.

So YAY! for me for hopefully never going through the breathtaking pain of occipital neuralgia again. And YAY! for all of you for hopefully never having to read my whiny posts about it.

Now ... ONWARD! I have some shoes to write about!

I can go the distance

So I usually try to push myself to three miles on my first run of the season—both to set the standard that I can do it and to see what chronic running injuries are on the Season’s Stupid Summer FlareupsTM menu.

My body actually felt up to running three miles when I woke up. My head felt like it might explode before I got to the corner of our block. But it didn’t. And the weather was just the right amount of cool and just the right amount of humid ... AND I JUST RAN THREE FREAKING MILES WITHOUT STOPPING.

Granted, I ran it at the pace I ran the New York Marathon. So I have some speeding up to do to achieve any kind of 8K dignity. And my ears that were screaming EEEEEEE at me when I started are now death-shrieking E!E!E!E!E!E! at me as I sit on our front stoop trying to cool down. But my head doesn’t seem to hurt any worse than when I started. Though it most definitely still hurts. Because why get completely back to normal all at once? That would just be selfish.

Private message for Rob and Scott so don't you other bitches read it: The big orange DEAD END signs are gone at our three-mile turnaround and it looks like the trail keeps going off to parts unknown. We must explore this mysterious new frontier like the urban pioneers we are. And I spent my entire run fantasizing about caulking my baseboards and priming my walls—so PLEASE come talk show tunes with me on our runs again like real men.

I’m tired of waiting

I have an 8K I want to run in three weeks and I need to train and my head pain is as low as it’s ever been over the last four weeks and I’m wide awake anyway and I’ve kept my running watch charged all this time just in case and I’m wearing my lifeguard shirt in case I drown so even though my ears are still screaming EEEEEEEEE in my head and my hair looks as lush as my hostas FUCK THIS HEADACHE PAIN—I’M GOING RUNNING!

I may be back in three minutes or three miles. Stay tuned ...

My headache is so bad it feels like there’s a cat behind me trying to hate me to death

You know how I never have stupid medical problems like chronic running injuries or bipolar disorder or a now five-week occipital neuralgia headache? Ahem.

I mean remember how I had a suspicious mole on my wrist biopsied two months ago? Turns out it’s squamous cell carcinoma, which wouldn’t exactly be a headlining drag name. And after a month-long wait to get on his super-packed calendar (pro tip: go into dermatology if you want ironclad job security) and I’m finally at a dermatologist’s (at the cruel buttcrack of dawn) for a preliminary look at it to schedule coming back to have it removed.

SO. MANY. DOCTOR. APPOINTMENTS.

I feel like I’m on the pill for my Endless Fucking HeadacheTM

Plus the headache gives me the backup birth control of OUCH OUCH DON’T TOUCH ME MY HEAD HURTS OUCH OUCH.

My doctor sent me a note today with the results from my labs, but I totally don’t understand whether he interpreted them to say they did or they did not confirm his preliminary diagnosis of occipital neuralgia. So I wrote back to ask for more clarification and should know more tomorrow.

But after my first day on this Prednisone course, I either actually feel or I REALLY WANT TO FEEL like the pain is better. So there’s that.

When the blood lady realized she forgot to fill one of her vials after she’d pulled the big scary needle out of one arm

so she had to poke a new needle in the other arm and thankfully the stretchy wrapping tape color she picked now doubly matches my questionable shirt.

Tentative diagnosis: occipital neuralgia. Which in all my discussions with my doctor and in my subsequent googling seems very plausible given the locations of my headache pain. Final diagnosis still pending ...

Back at the doctor for another attempt to figure out what the hell is wrong with my stupid head

While I’m waiting and the pain is throbbing and my eyes are crossing and my ears are screaming, help me figure out this shirt. Age appropriate? On trend? Flattering colorways? Chick magnet? I’m totally lost in this quest.

The good news: I just had what felt like a pretty solid workout—my second since The Marathon HeadacheTM started more than three weeks ago.

The other good news: It didn’t end with my head exploding in messy, screaming pain.

The bad news: Working out definitely made the pain worse.

The other bad news: Now my ears are screaming like a field of cicadas on a miserable summer night.

The worse news: WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH MY HAIR?

My Screamy Headache Man T-Shirt and I are back in the gym for my first time in exactly two weeks

(I didn’t say “the” first time because he may have been here without me in that time. I have more important things to keep track of than the comings and goings of my leisure apparel. Besides, trying to talk to him is a frustrating exercise in unproductivity; as you might surmise from his rather unambiguous name, it’s hard to get anything out of him but blood-curdling screams about his damn headache. Over and over. All over the Internet. And nobody should have to put up with that.)

Anyway, I’d hoped that my energy-chemical-explosion pre-workout shake might have an effect on my headache pain—which is significantly lessened today—but all it’s done is made me have to pee more. I worked out doing things that kept me relatively vertical—mostly back and shoulder stuff—so I’m at least hoping to have crippling workout pain—which is the pain I like—in those areas when I wake up tomorrow. After getting up to pee six times in the night, of course.

When you were planning on stuffing yourself with Tylenol PM and going to bed the moment you got home

but your mom and dad made you some pie so you decided to stay up for a little bit first:

Why am I in an electric chair?

A. I ran out of gas for my gas-powered chair.
B. I wore white before Memorial Day.
C. I’m not. I’m just getting my hair did.
D. NOT. GEELTEE.
E. It’s more comfortable than the nuclear chair.
F. IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO END THIS 12-DAY HEADACHE.
G. You’ll have to come to Ripcord at Theatre Cedar Rapids and find out for yourself now, won’t you?

Racing ahead

Among the many, many helpful suggestions people have offered me about conquering this STU! PID! FUC! KING! headache—I’m actually quite humbled by your mass outpouring of concern and the sheer volume of suggestions and I’m sorry that I haven’t personally thanked you all—is trying a mega-dose of caffeine. I’m currently five and a half months pop-free and I’m not about to break my sobriety streak now and I’ve never been able to choke down coffee so I just chugged a 5 Hour Energy even though I don’t feel tired so I’m totally about to live that episode of Desperate Housewives where Felicity Huffman mainlines her kids’ Adderall and stays up all night organizing the toothpicks and doing her kids’ science projects for them—WHICH IN RETROSPECT WAS A SIGN WE ALL MISSED WAKE UP, PEOPLE!—and I still have to work a half day from home to make up for the negative-PTO deficit my NYC canceled flights caused and I really want to pull the weeds and fix the flappy visqueen and displaced pea gravel in our side hosta bed and find more things to clean with my awesome new happy-Mother’s-Day-to-me vacuum and paint my room and finish the build-out behind the house and fix the deficit before the sun goes down and hoo boy I’m off and running where did I put my running shoes oh there they are I’ll see you when we all get to Narnia look out toothpicks here I come!

The bad news is I woke up with my head throbbing. Throb. Ing.

The good news is once I hobbled and squinted to the kitchen and ate something, my head felt considerably better. Better than it’s felt all week, I dare say.

The bad news is it still really hurts.

The good news is it feels manageable enough that it’s emboldened me to not mask it with any pain meds so I can gauge how bad it is all day.

The bad news is I won’t really get a full all-day reading because I’m crawling back in bed.

Wait ... that’s actually good news.

Guard my dungeon bedroom all you want, my Bitch Kitty nemesis

I’m still sleeping in the upstairs guest room because 1) my folks want to have me and my stupid nine-day headache near their bedroom so they can hear me choke on the pain and die in my sleep and 2) my bedroom bed isn’t made anyway.

Cannula

Many, many people suggested that oxygen might help alleviate the still-breathtaking pain of my now eight-day headache, so I just purloined my dad’s COPD oxygen machinery and a fresh (I hope) cannula (fun fact: this thing in my nose has a name!) and I’m sitting here playing on my blog while the machinery hums and purrs and hiccups in rhythm with my breathing in the earnest hope that I’ll soon be up and pain-free and skipping and cartwheeling and bending over to put on my socks with wild abandon.