I Want A New Drug

A few weeks back, my dentist yelled at me for being too stressed. I know that, but nothing I’ve tried is doing much to relieve it except Xanax and I figured there has to be other ways.

Panic attacks aside, when I started having dreams that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie dropped off 15 bratty kids at my doorstep asking me to babysit which caused me to wake up screaming, I knew it was time to take action. (Or at least stop reading gossip magazines before bed.) I tried some “stress relief” suggestions.

Aromatherapy stinks. Meditation...not for me. Yoga poses hurt and my Shiatshu massage chair is great on the shoulders, but I think it bruised a kidney when it worked its way down my back. At the health club, I spin, I dance, I Nautilus, I swim and hot tub.

Some of them work while I am doing them, but the stress relief doesn’t extend beyond that.

Semi-insane and out of ideas, I asked my trusty hubby, JW, and he said “Rock Chick, you always like a party!”

That’s true! I do like to have parties and I haven’t had one for a long time!

I asked a few of my card playing friends if they’d like to come over for some BBQ, poker and (even more delicious than BBQ), Oscar de la Hoya! He was fighting on Saturday night. I love boxing and Oscar. He’s no Bon Jovi, but he’ll do.

The hubby is the chef of our duo and early Saturday morning he was busily preparing Jamaican Jerk Chicken with a delicious dipping sauce and some mango/papaya salsa on the side, marinated skirt steaks for the grill and some ribs in his smoker slathered with his finger licking sticky good, orange chipolte sauce.

We don’t fool around with BBQ here, my friends.

As he prepped the food, I cleaned, and as I was vacuuming, I suddenly felt very strange.

It probably won’t surprised you that someone with anxiety disorders such as mine suffers from migraine headaches. I don’t see lights or auras before my migraines hit, but I can usually feel tension out of nowhere in my neck and jaw. I take my migraine med cocktail at that time and 99% of the time I can thwart it.

This was different. I just felt strange and then the pain hit. Migraine pain is bad, but this headache? OMG. I also noticed that I was extremely restless. Normally, my headaches make me just want to climb into my dark bedroom and hide.
When I laid down with this headache it got worse and I had an uncontrollable urge to rock myself back and forth and seek out the nearest candlestick or hammer that I could bash against my skull. Only the severe nausea I was experiencing kept me from doing so.

Sure that something had exploded in my brain, I told JW to take me to the Emergency Room. I was an unshowered, clothing mismatched mess complete with my hair sticking up all over the place and mascara down to my cheeks. Oh, and I wasn’t wearing a bra.

JW knows that if I am willing to go into public like that, it’s definitely an emergency.

Our third daughter was almost born in the car because I wasn’t going to the hospital without freshly shaved legs, eye makeup and my new super shiny lip gloss.

We arrived at the hospital and were greeted by my favorite ER doctor, Dr. Becky.

She jammed an IV in my arm and started adding benadryl, anti-nausea meds and an anti-inflammatory drug called Toradol. Shortly thereafter, I was feeling a little better, but the pain in my head was coming so badly in waves that if she said she wanted to drill a hole through my skull without anesthetic, I probably would have let her.

The scans were clear and fortunately, her treatment plan didn't include power tools of any kind. She said this appeared to be a cluster headache. She had another needle in her hand and with my permission, pumped me up with morphine.

Normally, I refuse pain meds. I’m used to being in pain and I can tolerate a lot of it. I don’t like the mind-altering effects of pain meds like Demerol, but Dr. Becky assured me that the morphine wouldn’t do that.

Within minutes the pain was almost gone, but I was stoned. I don’t like that feeling. I like to be in control of what I’m thinking and I like to remember what I’m doing.

By the time we got home from the ER, it was too late to BBQ, I was too out of it to play poker, so my wonderful friends who love me enough still show up to what had to be the lamest party ever, sat on the couch, watched Oscar de la Hoya fight and ate chicken wings.

I think they did, anyway. I remember them being there, but I don’t have any recollection of any conversations or if Oscar won or not.

I know this story sounds bad, but there is a silver lining. I woke up Sunday morning for the first time in months without jaw pain and was able to close my mouth properly. My teeth fit together like they should after thousands of dollars of braces and dental work and I was able to eat without pain.

It’s Monday and it’s still that way! Xanax and Motrin don’t do that for me so that had to be from the heavy sedative effect of the morphine. It’s just too bad it has that stoned effect.

So that’s it. I want a new drug. A legal one that will relieve the anxiety but won’t make me sick, stoned or forget what I’m doing.

Do you think it’s out there?

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