The Cocktail

My headaches haven't been as bad as they were in years past. The local honey, I do think, gets some credit for this ... but I realize, there is also a problem. A little over a year and a half ago, I hit the hospital thanks to one of my headaches. It was a reasearch trip - eliminate the worst, scan the headbone, scare the neighbors to death. Go home and sleep it off. The headache was, even for me, remarkable in its power, and that is clearly saying something; for those of you who've suffered this blog long, you know I'm able to manage levels of pain in my head most people would go mad enduring. For years, in fact, I didn't even bother with analgesics except very rarely. About seven years ago, though - the job was one of the worst of my life. This was the year I had a headache which continued, never stopping, but infinite in its variety - waking and sleeping - without relief for even a moment - for the course of over three months. Every day had its cresting bad hours, every night even unconscious, my brain was to one degree or other generating, and experiencing, its pain. The air in my building made me sick, and the nature of my position poisoned my head. I was, sincerely and literally, NEVER without pain during this period. And I think it was then I finally devised my cocktail. There were times I was desperate with the pain. I remember describing it to X - like millions of nanobots excavating my eyeballs from the inside, with millions of microscopic, cruel blades. I remember the night he and I went out with my mother, to move a refrigerator, when I had that level of a headache. I remember turning to my medicine cabinet. I would turn to my prescription. A very mild barbituate (I could take it in the daytime with no ill effects, fuzziness, nor fatigue): Phrenelin Forte. It was a very, very long time before I realized the reason I had sleep apnea so horribly, so terrifyingly, along with my headaches, was that this pill - the only thing that really worked for me - happened to come with the power to stop my breath. (Hey, and may I thank you *yet* again, Dr. W., you utter moron. Because it's not like my father DIED OF LUNG DISEASE - so it was a *great* idea you had, to give me a drug which "may cause severe breathing problems" ... Nice.) And so. Somehow, over the course of time, I began putting one aspirin, one acetaminaphen, and one ibuprofen together. After the headache a year and a half ago, when my mom, who'd been worrying and lecturing me about this "cocktail" for several years, importuned the ER doctor to tell me to stop using it - and he looked at me and said, "Does it work?" and then said, "Then take it," when I said yes ... "Or you can take four Advil at a time if that helps" - I won a vindication, and my cocktail became legitimate. And then it became two Ibu's and two Acet's, and maybe one aspirin for good measure. Then it became four Ibu's, and if that didn't work, within two hours I'd add two Acet's. And if that didn't help, at least one aspirin and one more Ibu before bedtime. Hey, I'm not drinking or something. I ... usually won't take four acetaminaphen, what with the stomach thing and all. It was ibuprofen the doc approved. So those have crept up in quantity. *** But my headaches ... are not as bad as they used to be. It doesn't hurt that my job is the best I have ever had, perhaps. It doesn't hurt that I'm comfortable in most ways. But it is unusual, for me to have a springtime without constant head pain, too. What *isn't* unusual, anymore, is for my go-everywhere bottle of meds - some of the ripoff-brand, caffeine-inclusive Faux-cedrin, some Ibu's, some Acet's, some aspirin ... and the last two or so, even, of the old Phrenelin Forte (because, yes, Virginia - there are headaches bad enough, you REALLY do not care if you wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night) - to run out in weeks instead of months. It's never odd for me to find one of the types of pills in there has run out, and I have to take a fistful of the others instead. I remember my self of twenty years ago, who hardly bothered over headaches ... and I remember that year of the unremitting pain ... and I'm not an idiot. I wonder if it's not a disservice to my intestinal lining, to indulge quite as much acet as I do. I wonder if the pain would not be smarter, to just endure it. But the headaches are so much worse than they were twenty years ago. I think. I'd swear it, anyway, if someone judgy were asking me. And I haven't used the prescription in at least two years now, maybe three or even four. I know it's been a LONG time since that idiot quack doctor prescribed the things to me; by now the little lavendar capsules are more talisman than active ingredient anymore. I just know I get headaches, and I don't want to keep them. And you can't give them away. And really. It's not like I'm drinking or anything. And the ER doc said ...