My leg pain kept me up all night

I can barely walk. There’s no way I can drive. I called in sick even though I’m trying to hoard PTO for next sumner’s adventures. I’m pretty discouraged, but at least the cat won’t sit with me and nurse me back to health.

The verdict: Grade II muscle strain in my calf

I have to stay off of it (not that the pain would let me stay on it) for a week. I’ll just be sitting at rehearsals. I have no idea how I’m going to drive my stick shift. Or sleep through the night.

But the big knot in my calf sure gives me a shapely gam.

Some jetés land you gracefully on your other foot. Some jetés land you in the ER.

You know how sometimes pain can make you flop sweat all over your existing sweat? Yeah.

I’m pretty sure I just have an epic muscle strain in my calf, but the pain has been breathtaking enough that I decided to have it looked at right away. And a nice theater mom took me to the hospital because there’s no way I can drive. Or dance in the show for a while.

Shit.

Three-atre!

Tonight I had our first off-book line bash for Aurora AND our first rehearsal for Hello, Dolly! so I thought I’d go for the TCR trifecta and wear my King Triton shirt from The Little Mermaid.

Now I’m sweltering under a ceiling fan because OUR AIR CONDITIONER IS BROKEN AND NOBODY CAN COME FIX IT UNTIL FRIDAY KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW and I’m filled with Tylenol PM to dull the pain of my mole excision and hopefully get me some sleep. Please bring snow.

Miles of decorating progress

Since my stupid owie is preventing me from doing load-bearing things like moving furniture and crawling around on the floor touching up baseboards, I’m focusing my bedroom-redo energy on artsy-craftsy projects like découpaging LiveLaughLove cutouts on my ceiling and making an art installation of my running hats, bibs and medals. I had the brilliant idea of carrying that stupid Captain America shield—mostly hidden here under my Mickey-ear ball cap—on my arm for an entire 13.1 miles in the Disney Avengers Half Marathon, so it’s staying fully enshrined among my endurance running souvenirs, no matter how cheap and out of proportion it looks.

SHIT!

I WAS GOING TO GET SO MUCH DONE THIS WEEKEND.

I was going to finish all the final details on my bedroom and finally be back in my own bed by tomorrow night. I was going to start and finish a little caulk-and-touch-up project in my bathroom while I had all my supplies out. I was going to get rid of the last of the little stuff in my storage unit so all I’d have left would be the big pieces of furniture. I was going to help a friend move some stuff.

But NOOOOO.

As the anesthesia wore off this afternoon I found myself getting nauseous and profoundly exhausted. So I left work early to crash for an alarming FIVE HOURS in not-my-bed and miss our office’s fun summer party tonight. And since I’m forbidden from lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS—no hauling boxes, no helping friends move, no throat-punching Mitch McConnell, apparently no putting my pants back on after my nap—I’m left with no options but to stuff myself with pain meds and cookies and watch MSNBC. With no pants.

OUCH!

The football field that Dr. McDreamy hacked out of my wrist has almost as much acreage as the care instructions the nurse gave me—on a piece of paper that at the moment is really hard to hold without dropping. I hope the function in my fingers comes back sometime soon.

This is totally immature but I’m totally too tired to care. Good night!

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

Flashback Friday: Personal Best Edition

I hit my never-to-be-beaten personal best (1:56:03, baby!) ten years ago in this half marathon, which weirdly tried to rebrand itself as something bigger than it was by calling itself the Chicago 13.1 Marathon.

Amateur runners of a certain size and weight strive to run sub-2:00 half marathons, and this is the only time I ever beat that milestone. I did it in part because an Ironman-doing friend of mine recommended that I take a handful of Advil before the race so I wouldn't feel any pain. Which worked like a charm because I felt awesome the entire time and the whole day afterward. AND THEN I WAS CRIPPLED FOR LIFE WHEN I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING. Word to the wise from the front lines of bad ideas: Never do this.

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?