The Headache

I've had a headache for several days now. This is the Headache to End All Headaches. It has its peaks and valleys, but it hasn't gone away completely no matter how much advil I take. And despite the heightened awareness of all the horrible and unfair and outrageous things going on in the world that comes with being back in school and taking certain classes, this headache is ruining my life. Cue melodramatic whimper. (Ok, it would make you grumpy too. This is the time to bail if you'd rather not have to witness more grumping.)
The thing is, I've never had a headache like this, and I've had headaches all my life, including migraines for most of college. There is this stabbing, sharp pain when that comes out of nowhere and brings the rest of my life to a standstill: what I was saying, what I was doing, which bus stop I get off at, where I put that glass of water. It is breathtaking. And really disruptive.
And so I put aside the fact that I really don't like being called a hypochondriac and I went to the health clinic and waited in a room full of people in face masks who may or may not have swine flu to meet with a nurse, describe my symptoms and medical history, wait in an exam room, describe my symptoms again, do a neuro exam, clarify my symptoms, answer the same questions several times (do they do this to see if you're making up symptoms, or because they didn't listen to you the first time? ugh.), listen to the RNP assigned to me say that it's stress, then that something must be making an artery in my brain spasm, then that it's probably stress and "we don't always know that we're stressed," then that she honestly doesn't know, then after consulting with a physician that it's an "atypical migraine" and that there's no way to know what triggers it or how to prevent it, but there are some pills she'd like me to take that might cause dizziness, nausea, and fatigue and to call her next week.
And then a nurse came in and said my test results were in and I have mono. What's that? My name's not Shannon? Woops, wrong room!
When politicians talk about fixing the health care system, I wonder if they know the kinds of feelings that come from episodes like these. I'm in kind of a lot of pain, and instead of help or even reassurance, I get charged $20 for some glorified tylenol and to be told that it's either nothing, something they won't/can't treat until it messes up my vision, coordination, or speech (mess it up more, I assume, than the drugs they gave me), or something they don't understand any better than I do.
If anyone knows a good primary care physician in the Twin Cities, now would be a good time to mention it.

Welcome back!

I'm back at school now. It's been busy, obviously, as you can tell by the recent lack of posting. Welcome week at the University of Minnesota can be summed up like this: we're all going to get H1N1, and oh, right, due to the economic downturn we have to all do our part and pay higher fees. I am not exaggerating when I say that I get an email about H1N1 every single day. The advice? If you feel sick, stay home and drink lots of fluids. If you live in a residence hall, though, you should go back to wherever you came from. Oh, and if you're going back where you came from, please don't use public transportation to get there. Because the first thing most students will do if they come down with the swine flu is to walk back to Coon Rapids.
In other news, work on our house is going forward. We have said goodbye to our old siding, our storm windows, our chimneys, and one back door. And our yard. And what I now understand as the luxury of opening windows without letting bugs or the noise or dust in. The upside is that this project is a great excuse to put off cleaning/filing/organizing anything and everything.
All the same, it's nice to be back in a routine that's a bit more challenging than messing around in the garden all day. The dogs are adjusting fine, but the garden is having a hard time understanding that I just can't be there picking tomatoes and beans and canning all the time. We're going to have a long talk this weekend and see if we can't work it out.