This Is Not An Exit

ookkay...I hope everyone out there enjoyed their holiday weekends.

As much as I'd like to say that I stuffed myself silly, got drunk and played with fireworks...my brain had other ideas.

To make a long and painful story short, the firework gods frowned on me and decided that July 4th of this year should be my inauguration into OH MY %*$%ING GOD THAT REALLY HURTS Land. In other words, I got a migraine. Now I knew they run in my mom's side of the family. I knew that they could be quite dehabiliating. But I was completely unprepared for the crushing pain that would focus on my left temple and have me dry heave until I nearly choked. There I was, sprawled on the bathroom floor in the basement of my sister's house, while a party (yes, dear god, a PARTY. With noise. And shouting. And stomping.) raged upstairs. I wanted to die, or at least kill the source of the noise.

Instead, I was half-carried, half-dragged out of the house (pausing every few feet to spread bile liberally on the lawn) to my dad's car and driven to the hospital. I don't recall much of the ride (the very act of lifting my head to the moving window made everything feel 9025823 times worse), but we made it just fine, with minimal vomiting. I had a CAT scan done (after they made me take a pregnancy test, much to my father's embarrassment. And I couldn't even walk to the bathroom for the test, so I had to be placed in a wheelchair! More fun.) and they put in an IV to replace my fluids.

Now, I consider myself to be a fairly tough and resilient person. At age 3, I fractured my skull just below my right ear. I have also sprained an ankle, wrist and thumb (don't ask! I didn't even know it was possible!) and got it in the head with a rock less than an inch away from my eye. I have had blood drawn on countless occasions, bone marrow tests, bleeding times, and so on. Not much fazes me anymore. But this...this was different. This stopped my world, my very being. For those of you who have ever had migraines, you have my sincerest sympathies. And if you haven't, I am truly envious. I feel pretty much back to normal these days, the Vicodin helped a LOT, but now that I know I am a 'migraine sufferer' - as I've heard the term used in commercials - I am now hyper-alert to any sign or twitch of something being off, something telling me I'm on the inexorable road to a migraine.

Definitely *not* how I wanted to spend my Independence Day.

Though on a brighter note, my Jennypendence Day was just fine!