another night in the ER

Today I resolve to spend no more nights in the ER room getting my brain scanned.

I mean, at some point you just fail to see the point. We know what I've got. It's a TUMOR. We know why it hurts. We know why I sleep all the time (except for when I really want to) and periodically bump into walls when I don't. We know all that.

So today I hereby resolve that even if I have another horrifying night like last night, I'm just going to swallow a bunch of Tylenol and go back to bed.

I'm not sure what happened last night. I don't even remember a lot of it. I just remember weeping with pain, calling for help, and spending hours and hours in the emergency room at Scripps while they took additional scans of my brain (yep! it's still there!) and shoveled pain medication down my throat. And finally, after what seemed like hours and hours, the medication kicked in and we were able to go home.

So the take-home lesson here (and it's not like this is the first time we've learned this lesson) is that we--and by "we," of course, I mean "I"--just have to accept at some point that when I'm having a bad night there's really nothing that can be done about it except take lots and lots of pain killers and steroids and try to sleep it off--and a doctor doesn't have to be there to witness it.

But there's the rub: steroids and sleeping are two great things that do not go together. The steroids are intended to reduce swelling and pain, but they'll also have you bouncing off the walls just as soon as the anti-inflammatory effect kicks in. Sleeping is just not on the roster. Normally I can balance the steroids with a mighty dose of nighttime magnesium/potassium and and Omega-3s, and maybe a Tylenol pm if necessary. But not always. I've spent a great many sleepless nights these past few months.

But these cocktails have become my new way of life, and it could be worse, I suppose. I've managed to keep away from the scary high-dose pain prescriptions, mainly by carefully managing my diet, exercise, and schedule. It's very easy to become addicted to some nasty pill or other and I'm just not going there. In general, if it's not something that's necessary to keep me alive--like, say, coffee!-- I won't take it.

So it takes some discipline and a lot of patience to make sure I'm able to manage the bad times then they come. But that's just the way it is. My plan here, of course, is to become completely normal again. And I'm definitely getting there.