Day of Pain

As some of you might have seen form my wife’s facebook post, I was in the Duke Hospital Emergency Room until about 4:30am last night with an excruciating headache.  Here is the brief story.

Sunday afternoon on my drive back from Christmas break, I noticed the right side of my face was very tender – like I’d been punched.  Then, over the course of a few more hours, a headache developed between my right nostril and my right temple.  I got home, took some pain meds, and everything went back to normal except the tenderness.  The same phenomenon happened again on Monday and Tuesday.  On Wednesday, again the same thing occurred, but the headache was much more intense and it was coupled with pressure behind my eye, watering and redness of my right eye, and some body aches.  Pain meds helped the pain, but didn’t eliminate it.

Yesterday, again the same thing happened, but this time it was developing into my first full blow migraine and pain meds weren’t helping at all.  I had the day off and was watching the girls, so I called Tiffanee home to take the girls and went off to Duke Urgent Care in Brier Creek to get it checked out (since the pain came on at the same time each day, and was isolated essentially to my right eye, I sensed something was strange).

The doctor at Duke Urgent Care said it could be three things.  An Ocular Migraine, where the migraine had a central location behind my eye.  Cluster headaches, where a long series of headaches were attacking the same area of my head in groups.  Or, everyone’s favorite, a tumor.  He did rule out a stroke or blood clot.  He suggested a migraine medication and told me if symptoms got worse to go the Hospital so they could rule out other possibilities.

Two maximum doses of the migraine medication later, at about 1am, I was headed to Duke Hospital with some of the worse pain I’ve ever experienced.  I hoped I wasn’t just being a wuss with my first migraine (my wife gets them all the time), but at the same time I didn’t want to be the next Matt Chandler and they find a tumor behind my eye.  They got me in, hooked me up to an IV, pumped me full of migraine meds, Benedyrl and caffeine and began the diagnosis.  Again, cluster headaches, tumors and, another favorite, meningitis were on the docket.

They took a CT scan and, thankfully, discovered that I had a massive sinus blockage behind my right eye, which was created a headache with migraine like symptoms and pain.  So they gave me a antibiotic, some perkeset and, at about 4:30am, sent me home.

I’m feeling much better now.  Headache is mostly gone, pressure behind my eye is gone, and, while I’m a bit groggy, I’m alert, awake and enjoying the day.  A special thanks is owed to my wife, Tiffanee, for all she’s done for me in the last 24 hours – coming home, driving me to the ER, getting meds, etc.  She’s been awesome.  Also to Kathrine Holloway, who came over to our house last night at 1am to watch the girls while Tiff and I were gone.  Huge blessings.

I’ll keep you informed if there is anything new.

Blessings,

Jeremy

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