Exploding head - Part 1

I used to be an exceptionally evil being (now I'm just evil, in case you were wondering) who lived daily with a headache. Sometimes it was just a dull throb, other days it was immobilizing. I would have migraines for 72+ hours at a time and would always end up at the doctor where they would shoot me up with some sort of pain killer and benedryl. I would be passed out before they could discharge me. My husband would always leave me passed out and drooling in the hospital bed for observation (they do that when they give you narcotics) to wander down to the pharmacy to pick up more strong drugs they had prescribed. I would sleep all the way home and somehow figure out how to get out of the car, walk down the sidewalk and up a flight of stairs to get to our apartment. I was constantly being prescribed drugs that either knocked me out, or told me not to operate heavy machinery, or both. Not that I operate heavy machinery other than my car, but you never know when the opportunity to randomly bulldoze something is going to arise and given that opportunity, I would have to say, "No thank you, I had a headache and took a pill and it says right on it that I can't do this". Imagine all of the fun I might be missing out on with the not operating of heavy machinery. My headaches always started at the base of my head. For a while I was convinced that I had a tumor and that my head was going to explode like a watermelon on Mail Call. Then I found out that it was tension headaches and I learned some stretches that helped relieve the pain, but meds were still necessary for any day I actually wanted to function. Oh, and did you know that some meds have maximum daily doses? So, if you wake up with a migraine and take the med as prescribed, by 10 a.m. you've had all you can have and your head STILL HURTS LIKE A MO FO, you can't do anything about it except sit in the dark and try to do the work that doesn't require thinking, or writing, or reading, or focusing.

Oh yeah, some of the meds I was prescribed were narcotics and caused fabulous things in my life. The best one is the time I had been taking Tylenol with codeine every night for about a week because I couldn't sleep and that's what the doctor told me to take when I had a headache. Anyway, we were living in Southern CA at the time and I had wanted to go swimming and to the hot tub that night. Before I had the chance to go, I took the Tylenol with codeine and fell asleep watching TV. I woke up in the hot tub. I was in my bathing suit and was standing in the HOT TUB. Apparently my husband helped me to bed and once there I jumped up, put on my bathing suit and said I was going swimming. I got my towel, the key to the pool gate and went down to the pool. He found me in the pool when he got there and says that I was acting a little funny, I didn't want him to bother me or put me under the water. Then I went to the hot tub...and woke up, and screamed. Scared some little kid shitless. It was not your everyday dip in the pool.