Why do I care?

Just to warn you, this will be more of a venting post rather than an update on me...
However, a very quick update on me, I have had a headache worse than normal the past few days. I'm to the point where I really don't care anymore. Apparently I'm supposed to have this freaking headache. That way people will be dumb and I won't be nice...
Now, onto the real reason why I am typing up a storm tonight... Why the heck do I have to be the way I am? Why do I have to care about people? I shouldn't. I should probably just give it up and quit caring. Then I wouldn't worry about them when they're being dingbats.
Someone I have become close to recently and for some reason they feel they need to punish themselves. I don't get why. STOP BEING DUMB!! Take care of the situation. You don't want me to worry? Then don't do what you're doing now. Stop being stubborn. Stop punishing yourself, and do what needs to be done. I don't know that I will be able to find pity in my heart later if you don't stop what you're doing now. That's all I can say... I had to get it out though. If you're reading this, and you pray, please pray for this person. They need it. They really need it.
Why can't I be one of those people who just doesn't care? For some insane reason I was cursed to be the person who once I get to know you, I'm going to worry about you(If I like you). If you're going through something and I know about it, you better believe I'm worrying about you... And praying for you. And doing my lovely stress thing. Which I'm sure isn't helping these awful headaches. I just want to be able to throw my hands up at the world and go "Sorry, I hate it for ya...", but I can't.
Although those who work with me probably think differently. I haven't been being a very nice person lately. Oh well. You'll live. Quit being dumb and I won't be mean.
Okay, so this one is short and sweet. But that's the gist of everything... By the way, my head is splitting open. Why me?!? GRR... :(

Becoming a burden...

In my twenty five years of life I have never felt like I was a burden on anyone... Until now. This is by no means brought on by comments of others, it is brought on by my always over-analyzing self. Those who know me best know that I tend to WAY over-think EVERYTHING.  It's what I do. I have no way of turning it off. I've tried. I just don't know how. It's sometimes a good thing though. I tend to randomly zone out, and when I do, I'm thinking. I'm always thinking. I also tend to stress cause of my thinking. A LOT.  I once had a massage therapist tell me I was too stressed to be my age. Sorry. If you can turn it off, please do. Don't give me information if you don't want me to worry about it.
Anyhow, back on the being a burden thing. I can't go take care of anything that needs to be taken care of on my own. I know I have talked about this before, but just bear with me. (I'll say it like I did in my first post, if you don't like it find the "X" in the corner. This is my blog.) If I need to grab something from the store, I have to either wait until Eric gets home (and this means he has worked 8+ hours in the icky sticky heat), or I have to find someone to take me. I can't just go "Oh, we need sugar, let me go get some..." or go grab a missing ingredient for dinner....  I can't run and take care of an errand, I can't take myself to the freaking doctor. I have to wait. Then I have to make whoever it is take time out of their day to sit in a doctor's office when they don't have to. In the case of my husband, it's taking time out of his off day(s) to do so. Right now, he's the person I want to go with me to said doctor so that he can explain my seizures cause he is the only person to have witnessed them. So I have officially become a burden on him. It's not fair. He didn't sign up for this. When he signed on, I was healthy, a little crazy, but healthy. Yeah, yeah... I know what those of you who are reading this are thinking... Part of his vows on our wedding day stated "In sickness and in health"... I will just say I did an eye roll to this. I feel guilty. Yes, that's it. Guilty. He didn't sign up to wake up with every move his wife made in her sleep afraid that she's having a seizure. He didn't sign up to have a wife that complains of a headache every damn day. He certainly didn't sign up to have a wife who most days would rather shoot herself in the foot than get up and cook him a decent dinner cause of said headache, though most days I make myself deal... The woman he signed up to be with took care of him... She loved cooking, not the clean-up of the cooking so much, but made sure he had food cooked. The woman he signed up to be with didn't have anger issues. I know, just control it, you say. I have two nice long extended middle fingers for those who say that.
Have you ever had a headache every single day for a month that NOTHING would help? Have you had to try to fight yourself on getting onto your two beautiful daughters who are doing nothing but normal playing cause you're head is killing you for more than one day at a time? Add to that not sleeping normally cause most nights you're laying there fighting the urge to move cause of some stupid tingling sensation, hoping, praying, that when you give in, you don't wake up a husband that has to work the next day. Even more fun is throwing into that mix a medicine that controls your seizures, or so you're told (I'm very seriously starting to think this tingling crap is some form of a seizure.), but makes you irritable. So most of the time you're fighting the urge to be mad over stupid crap in the first place, and when you finally do burst, it's worse than it should be. When you have all of the above circumstances going on and don't have anger issues, call me. I want to know how you do it. I have read in plenty of forums about this lovely Keppra and people on it having anger issues. At first I thought they were crazy, however now that I have been on this medicine for about a month, I see why. I don't know if any of them have any of the same issues as I'm having. But if you add enough stress to this crap, I can definitely see it. I don't see how there hasn't been some issue of someone going homicidal taking this crap... No, I don't plan to kill anyone. (Not yet anyway... TOTALLY JOKING THERE.)
At any rate, I know that dealing with everything on the other end of things has got to be frustrating. I wouldn't blame him if he walked away. Not a bit. Some of you I know are going "You waited patiently for two years after he signed up for the guard, are you nuts?" We got to discuss whether or not that was going to happen. This is something that he had no say in, no choice. I hate feeling the guilt that I do. Honey, if you read this, I hope you know that I love you more than words can or ever would possibly be able to say. You deserve so much more.
Then we have my poor mother who has her own things she has to deal with who takes time out of her day to  take me back and forth to work since Eric is working during these times. If you're reading this, I hope that you know I appreciate it more than you know. Plus she has taken my happy butt thirty minutes away and sat at one doctor's office with me, and that was apparently a huge flipping waste of time. That doctor is not worth the gas we used to drive to see her. Grr... And she had a part in babysitting me my first weekend on this wonderful medicine when I was dead to the world... AKA she watched the babies for us since Eric was at drill and I slept the majority of the time...
Speaking of that weekend, I must also take the time to thank my mother-in-law... First and foremost for not killing my husband in his teenage years so that I now have the wonderful husband I do taking care of me today... And secondly for babysitting my hiney while my mom had to work that weekend.
I also thank each and every one of you who have taken the time to listen to me whine about all this crap personally, or even by reading this blog...
You see? I have slowly become a burden on so many people. I hate feeling that way. It's a horrible feeling, and I wish my brain would quit overthinking this crap like it does... I know that this blog is a lot of horrible blah jumble, but it's what's going on in my head and I have to get it out. Maybe getting it out will get my mind to stop tossing it around up there, and in turn, ease the headache... It's been pretty bad the past few days. Hoping that I find the umph to get it together, I've got work tomorrow, and me working Thursday feeling like this didn't really go so well.
Hope that things on your end of the world are going better than mine. Love to all....

Normalcy...

Okay, so I think the most difficult part of this is not having anything really normal anymore... If I want to go somewhere, I have to wait until it is convenient for someone else to be able to take me. The girls and I can't be sitting at home and randomly go "Let's go to Hobby Lobby!" We LOVE Hobby Lobby. We don't even have to spend money when we're there (though most of the time they either talk me into something or I find a deal I can't pass up). Do you wanna know how long it's been since we went to Hobby Lobby? We can't be sitting here and go "Oh it's pretty, let's go to the park!" Do you know how hard it is to have a car in running order sitting outside, keys sitting right here, but still know that you can't just go to go? I know, I have to worry about the possibility of having a seizure while driving... What if I do and have a wreck? What if I hurt someone else? Or worse, what if I kill someone else? Even worse, what if it were one of my girls that I harmed/killed? What if I wound up dead myself and left my young daughters without their mother? (So yes, I know all the possibilities. Believe me.) All of those far outweigh the convenience of me driving. In Alabama, the law is 6 months seizure-free before driving, but if the hospital didn't report it, guess what? I technically still have a license. And for some odd reason I sincerely doubt they reported it. Once again, I have no intentions of driving... Even if my logical brain is saying "Niki, you haven't had a seizure during the day. If you drive during the day, you're good." Bad logical brain. No treat for you. Some states require that you are seizure free for 18 months before you drive (once again, if it's reported... I honestly wonder how many cases go unreported...) Honestly, no matter how frustrating this circumstance is, I think that once I'm able to drive, I might be scared... What happens if my body builds a tolerance to the medicine and I have a break through seizure? It happens ALL the time... How they can ever expect someone who has seizures to relax is beyond me. 

Want to know what else isn't normal? Having to explain to a four year old that if they find Mommy laying in the floor doing something funny that they need to either a) dial 911, or b) go next door and get the neighbor. In the process you also teach her that you have to push the emergency dialer button (I have to keep my phone locked or between my two daughters, they'd be texting everyone under the sun random "alkjahgeiheklhant" messages), dial 911, then press the green button...

Add to this the fact that if you're at home, you have people checking on you regularly. (Once again, I understand the concept, my husband is at work, I'm alone with a three year old and a four year old, you want to check on me. I'm fine with that.) My problem with it is that I feel almost stripped of my independence. I am so very thankful for all of you that care about me, don't get me wrong. However, when you're looking for something normal, this doesn't exactly fit the bill.

Then there's my "normal" me. I put normal in quotation marks cause those of you who know me best would be going "She thinks she's normal? I know what's wrong with her. She's already lost her mind..." So I say normal for me. Anyhow, I stated in my last post that I'm now having anger issues. Plus, having a headache every single day is far from normal. Not to mention, I'm a person that normally enjoys cooking. I do have days where I don't want to cook, but it's gotten to where it's more often than not that I'd rather take a beating as to cook. That's not normal for me. 

I also have this lovely thing where I have been looking forward to the fact that I was going to finally get my butt back in school this fall that has gone down the drain. Yes, I chose to put it off. I put it off cause in the long run, the positives of putting it off outweigh the negative. So I have to deal with it. I don't really have any other choice. It's okay though, it's just a little tougher right now when everyone is talking about back to school time. Once we get a little further into things, it won't be quite so difficult. Right now, however it sucks!

I am going to be honest right now. I do not like my job. Shocker, right? (For those of you who work with me that read this, especially my managers, it has nothing to do with you, I love you guys.... Most of you... Ha, ha) Chopping veggies and stocking the salad bar is just not my dream job. Don't hold it against me... I still suck it up and go to work. My dear hubby has offered to let me quit. Why not quit you ask? My job is the last piece of normal that I have left. Yes, I have people ask me how I'm feeling and watch me a little more closely than before, but for the most part, unless I act funny, I get treated no differently than I did a month and a half ago. That is why I hold onto it. When so many things aren't normal for you in life, you cling to the few things that are...

I will stop babbling now, after a quick update. Yes, I have a headache today. No tingles today though! Yay! The headache is more than just annoying, but I'm dealing. Hopefully within 48 hours, I will at least have a referral to a solution for these issues though. Love to all...

Raging Tingles

Okay, so I have this issue where I get a tingling sensation in either my arm/leg or both. Sometimes it's a slight tingle, but most of the time it's this tingle where if I don't move my arm, it drives me INSANE. For the most part it happens at night. I used to have it happen mostly in my leg(s) before I had Aubrey, and thought it was restless leg syndrome, or something of the sort. However, the more I do my homework on things, the more I think that it might somehow be related to my seizures, possibly being seizures themselves... Anyhow, recently it has been only my left arm that does it. You know the tingle that you get when your arm or leg falls asleep? Multiply that by at least a hundred and change the don't move it so it's not so bad to "If you don't move it, it's going to fall off or explode or both"... This is what I feel when this happens. It starts in either my fingers or my shoulders, then slowly creeps either down or up and engulfs my entire arm. Try falling asleep with that going on. Better yet, try laying still so that your husband who is having trouble sleeping cause of your recent episodes doesn't wake up. Poor hubby wakes at every little movement from my end of the bed. Lots of nights recently have been spent on my couch thanks to the tingles. And no, I won't send Eric to the couch. He works like a million more hours than I do, and even wants me to quit working so that I don't have that stress. Therefore, I refuse to send him to the couch. I feel it's my fault that he can't sleep if I move anyways. I know that I can't control the seizures, but still.
So last night was one of those couch nights. This morning, it felt like my arm had a seizure by itself and didn't include the rest of me. At work today, my arm started doing its tingling thing. Wanna know how hard it is to carry stuff with your arm tingling like that? Cause my left arm is my carry-stuff-to-the-salad-bar arm. Then my ears started kinda burning and I felt almost nauseous and funny in general. No, I didn't fall out. I kept on truckin'. I'm good. Although I'm still feeling a little tingling in the arm.
Do I still have a headache? Of course I do. Today has been one of those days where it goes from not so bad to "please just make it stop".
Although this stuff isn't what concerns me the most. It's my "irritability". I have zero patience. I'm normally a very patient person. I now have none. I know what you're saying, having a headache for this long will do that to you... My medicine does it, too. Which is not a good thing. I'm going to have to do something with at least one of the two soon. Wish me luck on all of this, the tingles, the irritability, and the headache. Right now the most important, I think, is the tingle.

Headaches...

So you know when you get a headache and it's so annoying cause it kinda messes with your day? Imagine having one every single day for a month. It's fun, really... NOT. Don't get me wrong, there are days it's just a dull ache. Other days it feels like my head is going to split in two. I told my husband that I was going to have a seizure the last time I had one because of my headache. It was just different from the days before. This morning it is about a seven on a scale of one to ten. I'll be glad when this part of the journey is over. I get too irritable now... It doesn't help that the medicine I'm currently taking can make you moody. I have read stories of several people turning into rageaholics after taking it. I'm slowly working on it. Not purposely.
I've told you all that I have to have a sense of humor to keep sane, right? Here's an example of it... The night before last, there was a small grease fire at the apartment complex we live in. We live on the back side of our building, facing the trees, and it was on a different building in the middle. The fire department came in without their sirens, so we had no clue they were her until I opened our door and saw flashing lights through the hallway. Eric and I stepped out to see what  was going on, and I looked at him and said "Hey, there's flashing lights here and it is SO not my fault this time..." Ha, ha... It's sad cause an ambulance came, too, and almost everyone of our neighbors that walked up, said at first they thought it was for me. Too many ambulance trips recently. At least we have good insurance.
Back to the subject of headaches, a dear friend of mine has been having bad migraines and went to the doc for it. They did an MRI and she has an abnormality on her brain that they have to check out. So, if you're reading this and you pray, add her to your list. Dear friend, if you're reading this, which I'm sure you are, know that I love you bunches lady. Know that all four of us love you bunches... I wish that I could at least come see you next week. I hate not being able to drive right now... While I'm on the subject of adding people to your prayer list, I've got a few other people who are dear to me that need it right now as well, too. I told my hubby last night that he wasn't allowed to have anything bad happen. My worries are stretched all over the place right now. (I have to worry about you guys, I love you, it's what I do...)
I suppose I should go and love on some babies, take my medicine, and get us ready for the day. I have to work... I hope that you all have an amazing day, and like I said, if you pray, pray for them. (And maybe for my sanity :-P)

Dealing with new-old things...

So I've decided that maybe blogging will help me with some of my anxiety and mood swings due to the many frustrations of my seizures. I can't say epilepsy, because the closest I've come to actually being diagnosed was "borderline epileptic". I may end up on other subjects, but I need somewhere to get this out, and this will also give me a chance to keep out of town family members up to date on what's going on with my head, quite literally, lol.... I will warn you, I do tend to joke about it, but it's the only thing that tends to keep me sane. If you can't handle it, politely point your mouse to the "x" in the top right corner of your screen and make an exit.

Let's start with the beginning point, or what for sure set all of this in motion. As I have read online about different things, there is a chance that I have actually been having seizures way longer than what we think... Before I go off on that tangent, here we go.
We're going back nearly three years ago to September 11, 2009. Hubs and I are in bed, and for me, it's like I went to sleep and woke up in an ambulance. Imagine my surprise terror to wake up in the back of an ambulance. The paramedic informed me that I had just had a seizure. What an interesting experience, to say the least. I had a catscan, and was discharged with instructions to see a primary care doctor ASAP. Later I found out that my husband was instructed to search our house for drugs. Apparently the doctor here didn't think it was possible for epileptic episodes to randomly come from nowhere at the age of 22. Those of you who know me well, know the thought of me using drugs is ridiculous. Always nice to find out that your local ER staff believes that you're a druggie when you don't touch the stuff.  For those of you that have never had a seizure, let me tell you what it's like, or at least for me. I believe that the occurrences I am talking about today are grand-mal, although my most recent primary care doctor (who admitted neurology is not a strong point) says they are not due to me not losing bladder control (Sorry lady, I don't like to pee myself, lol). Anyhow, for me, it has gone something like this.... Fall asleep (or so you think), wake up in the back of an ambulance groggy and with most of the ride being hit-or-miss as far as remembering it goes, being confused and finding it hard to concentrate for quite a while, and then when you finally somewhat gather your senses, getting doped up with the anti-convulsant of the doctor's choice (which pretty much puts you back into the groggy state, I guess I might as well say that that state is like being drunk, many people can relate), and then the next day feeling like you can't move because you're so sore... Although I do have to say the more seizures I've had, the less I feel it the next day...
So we went to see the primary care doctor. He, of course, sent me right off to the neurologist. She did a sleep deprived EEG, and came up with an odd conclusion, or at least to me it seems that way. According to her findings with said EEG, I am borderline epileptic. She said that I am more likely than Average Joe to have another seizure, but I am just as likely to never have another seizure. (Which I did, three more to date, as a matter of fact.) At which point she also told me that she would leave the choice of whether or not medication up to me. Being the mother to two young daughters, one nearly two and the other nearly four months at that time, plus working full time, hubby and I decided that it would be best if I took the medicine. It made the two of us feel much more comfortable leaving our girls alone with me. A month or so later, I couldn't remember my youngest daughter's birthday. I broke down into tears, and we decided maybe the medicine wasn't for me, that we'd take our chances since we were told I might never have another one. Which medicine did I take? To be honest, I don't remember, and I haven't went through all of the medicines to find out which one it was. Hubby said it looked like candy, and honestly it kind of did.
For nearly three years, I was seizure free. Then on July 12/13, hubs and I laid down to sleep, and guess what happened, I came to in the back of an ambulance. I was discharged from the ER and we went home and crawled into bed. Once again, I came to in the back of an ambulance. Three years without a seizure, and within hours I had two. It's crazy how suddenly this has changed for me. That night/morning I had another catscan, was given medication via an IV, and told to get my behind back to a neurologist. I developed a headache, very common to have after seizures, or so I've read...
Three weeks to the night later, August 2, I had yet another seizure. This time, I was given a prescription for Keppra, 500mg twice a day, along with being given medication via IV. I slept most of the weekend afterwards thanks to my new prescription. Literally my weekend went wake up, take medicine, sleep, wake up, take medicine, sleep. What little time I was I awake, I was stumbling around and acting drunk. Thank you medicine. I took a week off from work per dear hubby's orders...
I did get in to see a primary care doctor during this time. This would be the one I mentioned earlier, the one who said neurology is not her strong point. She seems to believe that as long as the medicine is keeping me from having seizures (Which, knock on wood, two weeks later and I have yet to have another seizure), that I'm fine without a neurologist. There's just this small problem where I've had a headache for a month, and the Keppra is supposed to take care of that. It's just that it, well, it isn't. I've been taking the medicine for two weeks and my headache has shown zero sign of letting up. She told me that if my headache didn't go away or if I felt that I should go to the neurologist, she'd be happy to give me the referral. Nearly two weeks later, she hasn't given me the requested referral. I have found out that the local urgent care center can give me the referral I need, assuming the doctor feels it's necessary. I just don't see any normal doctor not wanting someone in my position to go see a neurologist. So I'm currently very frustrated with her for not doing what she said she'd do. The plan is that on hubby's next off day, we will be going to Urgent Care and, fingers crossed, get the needed referral.
This pretty much gets you caught up, and since it's already a lengthy post, I will leave it at this.