Last week? It was bad
Last week was a nightmare through and through. I’m having a hard time comprehending what all happened but that might be the migraine talking. Migraine? What migraine? That will be at the end. First, everything that happened BEFORE. Note: I’ve been pretty whiny lately and I’m pretty sure a lot of people would call these “first world problems.” It’s also a wall of text and I have no pictures (that’s also in here somewhere). Also? I didn’t really proofread.
Last weekend- actually, August 22, we picked up the remains of my husband’s computer. He had shipped it to a friend back in October of 2009 through a company that uses Big Brown Trucks. The package was damaged and we hadn’t actually seen it for ourselves yet. It was a little shocking. I don’t mean a dented case or a slightly damage USB port. The thing is basically not salvageable. We have been going back and forth for over nine months now to resolve the insurance claim on it but still have heard nothing. I wrote up a long entry with details and pictures but delayed in posting it. I contacted a customer service representative and was given a magic phone number that was supposed to fix things. We’re still waiting. Depending on the outcome of a phone call that husband is going to make tomorrow I might just push the Publish button and name names. Waiting over nine months on a legitimate claim is ridiculous. I’m talking call the BBB AND email The Consumerist ridiculous. I probably should have done something like this sooner but I am too much of a forgiving person.
So that took place on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday I sat down to work on my pictures from the weekend and also from the beginning of August. My thoughts were to use some of them for a Wordless Wednesday post. Little did I know that more than two thirds of the photos had been corrupted. I’m using a temporary set up for my hard drive because my own computer is definitely out of commission. The hard drive containing my photos, though, is so far fine and I wanted to remain consistent with my storage methods. The hard drive is jury-rigged using a SATA to USB cable. All that I can guess is that somehow when I transferred my images from my camera card straight to that hard drive the files were corrupted. I did find a free program called PhotoRec that allowed me to bring back most of them. The others I think are lost because my genius self said last Friday (the 20th; this is what happens when you don’t update for so long- last, next, etc lose their relevance) “Self, you should format your card because that article you read said that regular formatting made it easier to retrieve accidentally deleted files.” Oops. But in the days between realizing the original copies were toast and being able to resurrect (some of) them I was a total mess.
Also, that whole week, The Place I Don’t Talk About Much was causing crazy amounts of stress. I don’t go into specifics about my job but some things happened that make me question what some people I work with really think of me. I’ll give you a hint: it’s definitely not like an equal. There is so much more I wish I could say but the Internet Police might get me. So in a word: stress.
Thursday night terrible things happened. Things were fine until around 8:00 when what turned out to be one of my worst headaches EVER started. And I do mean a literal headache. Sharp stabby hot poker-like pains behind my right eye. I thought no big, that usually goes away after a half hour or so. NOT THIS TIME. It progressed in to something bad so I took an Excedrin Migraine. I used to swear by the stuff; just a half a dose usually gets rid of whatever I have. It didn’t. So about a half hour later I took the second half of the dose. Instead of anything getting better it settled in to a mixture of a steady/sharp headache that after 2 hours was no better. Thinking that I could sleep it off I went to bed. WRONG. I woke up a few short hours later. I think it was from the headache itself. After sleeping just a little while longer I continued to wake up and eventually emailed in to work to say I couldn’t come it.
All day Friday I waited for it to go away. And waited. Once again I tried sleeping and got the same result: a nice, painful headache that woke me up. Since my go-to medicine had failed and you’re only supposed to take 2 every TWENTY-FOUR HOURS (read: eternity when you have a headache like that), I didn’t take anything else. Come Friday night I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep lying down so I tried to sleep in our papasan. That didn’t work. At 4AM I was literally counting down the hours until the weekend clinic would be open. That wouldn’t be until 10AM so I eventually gave in and slept on the couch.
I dragged the husband out of bed at 9:30 (ON A SATURDAY) and asked him to drive me which he did without fuss. The doctor there told me pretty much what I expected to hear. Need to visit my family doctor… oops, I really don’t have one of those yet. Should probably get a referral to a neurologist to schedule a CT scan “just in case” this is something abnormal. Was not pleased at all to hear that I had been on Accutane this year. (Oh hmm. I never mentioned that here, did I. Maybe another day.) Said I should also visit an ophthalmologist because it’s been way past time I do that anyway. My last pair of contacts? They’ve already gone past the time I should still be wearing them but I don’t know that I can get an appointment before SEPTEMBER 28th.
In the end I walked out with a prescription for Fioricet, which the pharmacy took over an hour to fill. Thought that was a bit crazy. Anyway, got the medication, took it, and waited. Nothing much happened. Four hours later took another. Still nothing. Yet another 4 hours later I took another and decided it was time to sleep. AND I GOT TO SLEEP. I can’t tell you what really getting to sleep for several hours straight and not waking up with a raging headache was like. Some of you might know but it felt AWESOME. I continued to feel good for most of Sunday. I did end up taking more medicine once but that was it. Decided I could go to work on Monday (meaning this morning) so I did. Most of the day I felt pretty fuzzy headed and was told at least once that I didn’t look so good. –Doesn’t that always make a person feel GREAT? For other people to go “You look terrible” or “Your eyes make you look exhausted”? I always just have to kind of smile and nod and try to go on.– I ended up leaving a bit early because I felt extremely tired and thought a nap would help. I also have a meeting in the morning that I need to go to and I didn’t want to make myself sick by staying.
So I came home and tried to rest. And woke up with my head hurting again. It’s like I can’t shake this at all. From all of my 4AM Googling and research I keep wondering what if something is truly wrong. What if there is no cure? What if I’m stuck with chronic headaches for life? WHAT IF I NEVER GET TO SLEEP AGAIN?? I know it’s crazy but I’ve talked about my irrational fears that I continue to have even when I know they’re irrational. I’ll find some way to deal. I’ve made one of the appointments I need: ophthalmologist (I have said that so much in the past few days that I don’t need spell checker for it anymore). I didn’t get an appointment until September 28 (as mentioned) so we’ll see.
I have started keeping a headache journal to see if there is anything I can identify that triggers these things. There hasn’t been a single thing that I can remember but I don’t think my memory is sharp enough to keep up with every headache I’ve had.
Oh, and Sunday? (I had written “Monday” but realized that today is Monday, so yesterday was Sunday. GAH.) My host had the motherboard go out on the server I’m on. Had I sat down to write when I intended I would have found out then but I didn’t until later.
I almost forgot this part: on Thursday night I had tried to order my computer. I found what I thought was a decent priced pre-built computer that should suit my needs. It should definitely be faster than what I had. But the company’s website wouldn’t let my order through. Friday the husband tried to order it for me but the free shipping coupon wouldn’t work (my order was totally eligible) AND the site still wouldn’t let my order through. He started a chat support session with the company. I don’t know what all they said but they were like “If it’s eligible the shipping coupon should work. You have to create a profile to order the computer. That computer isn’t eligible for the 25% discount coupon. The site still won’t let your order through? Just give me your credit card number in this chat and I’ll order it for you.” That last bit is where I put my foot down. Putting a card number in a secure cart system is one thing; giving it to an agent in a chat session? Totally out of my comfort zone. They ended up calling us and getting the computer ordered on their side. I still feel like they should have given us something extra for the trouble but OH WELL. My computer should be here September 8 or earlier. I will finally have something to really work on photos with.
So that is all of last week’s tweets in the expanded form. I think. I have a few other projects that I’ve been trying to work on and here I go being cryptic but I may also have some hopefully good news to share. I’M NOT PREGNANT; my family always seems to jump to PREGNANT when they hear things like “good news.” If by some chance I actually am (I SHOULDN’T BE) I would probably pass out and you wouldn’t hear from me a for a while because I don’t think I could handle the shock.
I’ve got to do something about writing these massive walls of text.