Monday, September 20, 2010

An Update: The Days After the ER


First, thank you for all of the kind words and prayers. It means more to me than y'all know.

So, I slept off and on the night after my ER visit. We kept a close eye on my blood pressure (BP). I've been tracking it at different times, and it's fluctuating more than normal... so that is a bit of a concern right now.

My foot:  I remember it hurting bad in the ambulance and at the hospital, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. Apparently, when the people that carried me inside picked me up, my feet drug on the concrete a bit. The day after the ER, my foot started hurting me pretty bad. It got to the point, by the end of the day, that I could barely walk or put pressure on it. It was red, swollen, and there was a red line that started at the scrape and went several inches up my foot toward my leg. An infection. So, my mom and I started washing it with hydrogen peroxide, soaking it in Epsom salt water, and putting Neosporin on it (repeating several times a day). We were able to stop the infection from spreading (thank God). It still hurts, but the past few days have been progressively getting better (more mobility and less pain and swelling).

My head: Still having daily migraines. I had one that was really bad the latter half of Saturday... preventing me from going to a friend's wedding. I felt horrible not being able to go - angry as heck at these stupid migraines that keep interfering with my life!

I'm still trying to get in to see my doctor this week because we really need to talk about what's going on. This is the first time that I've ever written a 5 on my 1 to 5 pain scale. I told my doctor up-front that I rarely give either extreme, and that it would take an extreme emergency for me to even go to the ER (which would "deserve" a 5 rating, i.e., excruciating headache/migraine). I'm extremely stubborn / bull-headed, and tend to push through (or at least try) pain that perhaps I need to seek professional help for... but that's a whole other thing...

I'm so glad that my husband came into town this weekend because I really needed him to take care of me. I hadn't seen him in almost a week, though, so it stunk that the weekend was spent with migraines and pain. I have been irritable and increasingly frustrated the past few days. It takes so long and so much energy to get done even the smallest of tasks, and I HATE IT! I'm trying so hard to be patient with myself and pace my activities. I'm doing a lot better, but I hate the feeling of getting nothing done... all the time. I hope to see my doctor on Wednesday, and then my family and I are going to a seminar about neurostimulators that evening. We'll see how all of that goes.

P.S. Please check out my other blog, which I recently posted on: Unfolding the Rosebud.

Graceful Agony's Round 2 Blog Carnival

Graceful Agony's Round 2 Blog Carnival is up and running. The topic for this blog carnival was 'Depression: Who turned out the lights?' Thank you to Jolene for organizing the various posts for the carnival. It's hard to say that I enjoyed reading everyone's posts about depression, but I definitely identified with many of them. I'm glad that people were willing to write about and share their experiences... I know that's something I often struggle with. Please check out the posts for this round of blog posts.
Disclaimer: Nothing on this blog is intended as medical or legal advice.

What I write on this site is my own, and if it is someone else's, I take special care to attribute it to the original author. So, please don't use any of my material without proper attribution or permission. Thanks.