Migraine: Day 12

Well, this has been yet another fun week. My migraine symptoms have ramped right up and been keeping me company for 12 long days now. Fortunately I have only had to work one of these days, and I am supposed to work tomorrow. God only knows how...

It started with my cycle (as I mentioned in the last post) and just hasn't pissed off. This time it's appeared as a massive migraine headache. Along with the pounding headache; vertigo and nausea have come back to visit. Yesterday they hung around all day.

I have taken so many panadol, you know those huge bulk packs - all gone. The Neurologist has warned me not to take too many over a long period of time but I just don't know what to do to get through each day. I try to hold off as long as I can. The sad thing is they do nothing, My theory is that they can't hurt.

I'm allergic to codeine, it gives me asthma but I've had to pop a few Panadine and Mersyndol as well just to get some relief. The headache is worse than the asthma at this point!

On Sunday we had a few friends coming over, the same group we have now rescheduled twice due to my health issues. I was so unwell but I just couldn't cancel again. So, I decided to drink. Even filled with pain killers, I was still in bits I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to add wine to the equation. Actually, I do know ;

1. I just didn't want to let anyone down or be a party pooper

2. There was no way I was going to be able to get through it unaided.

3. I just wanted to be normal, I just needed the pain to go away for a moment so I could relax and have fun.

It worked for about three hours but the next day was hell. I threw up all day and my head punished me for my stupidity by hammering into my skull and sending piercing daggers behind my eyes. Stupido!

On Tuesday I got some acupuncture/massage with a practitioner I haven't seen before. Giving my medical history was lengthy and depressing. Hearing it out loud again I just couldn't believe what my body had put up with in the past 6 months. She seemed very concerned that in my state I was planning to have a transfer in a few weeks.

She has now made ME very concerned.

If I do get pregnant will it be hell on earth for 9 months? What if I am not well enough to do this? What if I am too unwell to be a mother? I can't even look after myself when I'm like this and I don't know how long it will last.

For the past 12 days, I have had to force myself to engage in life. I force myself to get up, get dressed & put make up on even if I can't go out. I went out yesterday for lunch with a friend, but felt like I was going to pass out with the crazy rollercoaster in my head. The remainder of the day was spent lying down. I pretend to myself and other people that I'm ok. I get sick of saying I'm not well. I've missed so many functions, parties, events thanks to my head and my ovaries!

I was always so active before this, I couldn't sit still and hated doing nothing. My career was always so full on, that's the way I liked it. Things are so different now, when I look back it's like I'm reflecting on someone else's life. It seems so far removed from my own reality.

Charlie isn't sleeping. He is so stressed with all of this. I had a turn when he got home last night. I couldn't move for an hour after it. I had another one this morning over breakfast. I try to reassure him I'm ok, but I'm not. I haven't had one for a good few weeks now, we keep hoping that each one is the last one.

The worst thing is I can't get any treatment for this. Nothing has helped me so far; drugs, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, chinese herbs, naturopaths. I'm giving a new therapist a try on Monday, he is some type of energy practitioner who is also a chiropractor and reflexologist. My in-laws swear by his magical powers. So, I shall keep you posted.

That's all from the couch for now.

Head Games

These days, with every period (cycle) comes a wave of my migraine symptoms again. Since the migraine is all hormonally driven in my case, any slight change in the hormone levels seems to send me into a spin. It's kind of a little reminder that it's still there.

I was a bit worried about the arrival of this period. It is NEVER welcome mind you. For nearly two years now it's arrival each month has brought with it such disappointment. I knew however after all the ovary issues I've had in the past two weeks this one would be a particularly unpleasant one!

It arrived with gusto in the chemist yesterday. My head started aching early in the morning and was gaining turbulence by the minute. I was out having breakfast so ducked into the chemist to get some pain killers into my system quickly. When I tried to pay, I had a small *turn and couldn't speak. Usually on my 'bad' days my speech slurs or I stutter but this time, nothing.

I carry a note from my neurologist with me for such occasions but my body froze and I couldn't get it out of my purse. It's a really hard thing to try and explain to someone, especially when you can't talk! I feel like a drug addict on a high, and most probably look like one. I dread this happening in front of someone I know, but haven't seen for a while as I haven't told too many people about this.

The poor lady in the chemist didn't really know what to do about my momentary brain pause and tried to determine if I was going to pass out or vomit, all I could do was shake my head in slow motion.

The remainder of the day was spent chewing Imigran to try and aid my pounding head. Never mind the period pain I was so worried about!

Today I had to work, thank god my migraine had reduced to a bad headache so I got through ok. I couldn't possibly take another sick day.

Meanwhile, back down in ovary city....The IVF clinic have informed me that I will need daily blood tests and two or three scans for the next round, the transfer. I thought they said the frozen transfer process was supposed to be easier? And, more great news...I may also need to do a "HRT" cycle; more hormones in my system which means more days like these past few, if not worse. Enough already!

I just want to be well again. Well, and pregnant.

Too much to ask? I really have to hope that it's not.

* During the seizures or turns, I have speech loss/slurring which may last 5 minutes or the whole day, vertigo, my body becomes very heavy and I lose neck control (so I have to lean against a wall) and movements become slow. It is difficult to make eye contact or use my hands to communicate. It's like a little whizz fizz bomb goes off in my head. The actual fuzzy, fizzy bit only lasts about 30 seconds these days. At first, back in November they would last around 5minutes.

Insult To Injury; An Anecdote (A short account of an interesting or humorous incident, intended to illustrate or support some point)

My new nephew (4 weeks) came to visit me today.

Let me set the scene.

I am wearing compression stockings (full length,right up to my now uber flabby thighs thanks to months of being too unwell to exercise properly). Over this some loose black full length flared lycra tracksuit bottoms, on the upper half a thigh length shirt (also with a good % of lycra), three sizes too big.

This morning our hot water stopped working so I had to call in the plumber. When he arrived I greeted him holding nephew.

He told me he needed to call the gas company as he couldn't fix the system. "Usually", he said, "they are very slow in getting back but don't worry, I told them it was urgent since you have a new baby. That always works" *insert wink.

As much as I wanted to say that my fattness, limp, bloated belly and lack of pride in my appearance was actually due to a swollen ovary caused by IVF surgery, I opted to smile and thank him.

The worst thing was that my mother (also present) thought it was hilarious and after he left relayed it all to me again, "He said it because you do look like you just had a baby, you really do!".

Oh, My, God.

Twisted

My transfer was set for 730am this morning.

Yesterday, the pain in my swollen stomach became very sharp. Sharp enough that I couldn't walk without limping and expelling anything through any orifice (sneezing, breathing, weeing...I'm sure you get the picture) was very uncomfortable. It's hard to know what to do as you expect a moderate level of pain through all of this, the common symptoms that they tell you to expect consist of (amongst others);

Nausea, constipation, shortness of breath, bloating, severe cramping, tiredness, dizziness as well as post operative pain......so at what point do you become concerned?

Anyway, I called the clinic and they seemed to think it was serious enough for me to leave work and head in for a check. It's hard to explain to your colleagues that you have to leave straight away with no explanation! This stuff is personal, I don't want everyone following every step. I don't want to have to share my pain and failures with too many people. Only those closest to us know about the IVF. I am afraid to tell people now as the times I have opened up, people have said the most stupid and hurtful things.

Upon examination Gyno developed a concerned look. I think she was more afraid of giving me more bad news than anything else. There are only so many tissues in her office. The verdict was that my ovary was swelling badly with a possibility of it twisting, losing blood supply. This would mean I would have to lose that ovary.

Why the fuck couldn't this bit just go smoothly, we were so close.

She said that I had to go straight home and lie down to reduce the chance of it twisting. I was to still go in at 730am this morning and she would decide then if we would go ahead with the transfer or cancel it and freeze my embryos. I cried loudly. She hugged me and apologised saying she just didn't want me to get sicker. If she did the transfer under the circumstances and I became pregnant I would end up in hospital for 3 months.

So, the pain continued all night and was still there when I went in for the transfer. Gyno decided not to go ahead today. I now have another wait of around 6 weeks until I can do another transfer from my frozen test tube babies. The good thing is that it will give my body and therefore the embryos the best chance of a pregnancy. This morning there were 2 great embryo's able to be frozen, the third was a little slower and they didn't have a smooch hope that it would pull through with it's siblings.

I am at home lying down on the couch trying to digest this new delay. I know it's for the best, it's still just so hard and I can't help but feel like I'm being punished again. I just wanted something to go right for us.

Some very good news just came in via a call from the scientists. All three of our little embryo's are able to be frozen, meaning I have three chances of getting pregnant without having to undergo surgery and the hormone injections again.

I'm already proud of them.

And Then There Were 3

Three Eggs. I nearly cried when the nurse told me. I wasn't hoping for 20 but somewhere around 10 would have been at least worth the effort. Why was I so upset with my number? These are the statistics the nurse gave me before my retrieval;

70% of the retrieved eggs will survive the first night

40% of these surviving eggs (now blastocysts) will make it to the next day and become embryos.

From there, you aren't given a % of success for the transfer process (the part where they pop the embryo into your uterus and hope for the best). As my gyno said "It's luck of the draw". Well, that's comforting!

I am no mathematician but when I awoke to the number 3 and a whole lot of pain, the likelihood of me becoming pregnant without having to go through the whole process again was not good. It also struck me that there was a strong underlying expectation that it wouldn't work the first time. The nurses all expected that I'd been in a few times, the surgical nurse even greeted me with "Hi, great to see you again". My surgery a few months ago had been at a different hospital...I'd never seen her before but being an IVF patient, she just assumed I'd been back a few times!

I didn't sleep last night despite the General Anaesthetic still in my system. I was wired worrying about my 3 little eggs, which by now were mixed with my husbands finest sperm.

Hopefully they all survived the night.

The scientist called with GOOD NEWS this morning! Can you believe it!? The three little ones all survived (in your face statistics) and done what they were supposed to do; form blastocysts.

Now, their job is to stay strong and keep on keeping on until my transfer on Friday. No pressure guys.

My job is to try and find clothing that will fit around my hugely swollen belly.

Harvest Day 26th May 2011

Finally, after so long and so much on the 16th of May we began.

I had been waiting so long to get to this point, but when I arrived I was terrified. Terrified of the emotional rollercoaster, the process, the pain. Mostly, we were afraid of what the injections would do to me.

I am happy to report that it didn't go too badly! I couldn't work for the 13 days during the injections as the rush of hormones though my body brought back the vertigo (one of the main migraine symptoms I get), also some days my speech was as slurred as my husband's is after a work "lunch", the memory loss came back which made it imperative that I wrote everything down on a chart I kept on the fridge. That teamed with some whopper headaches, HOWEVER it wasn't too bad - not as bad as it could have been!

Today was the first day in the past 11 that I haven't had to inject myself, which was a nice break. My last injection was the 'trigger' which I needed to administer at exactly 815pm last night. This meant excusing myself from Italian class. It was also State of Origin night, which made for much speculation about my departure! How do you explain this stuff!?

Tomorrow is my first ever egg collection day (commonly known as harvest day, a name which gives me a mental image of my gynecologist at a ho-down every time the term is used) a momentous day in the IVF process. Tomorrow, I find out if my body has behaved as it should from the 1 6 injections I've given myself and produced great looking, well sized eggs. I don't know how it's going to go, I don't even know what a good result is classified as. All I know is that my scans have shown I have around 7 decent sized follicles with who knows how many little eggs inside and my belly is bloated like I have just been to Sizzler.

Whilst I am under the knife, my husband's job is to produce a prize-winning 'sample'..that's right he has to spoof in a jar while I am having surgery.. Gee men have it tough right..

Fingers crossed. Ovaries at the ready...

The Waiting and Waiting and Waiting Game

It's a strange thing. First, the trauma of the countless pregnancy tests and a rollercoaster of hope,despair, hope, despair. Then the desperation I felt being told there was no hope of becoming pregnant the old fashioned way. I thought THIS was rock bottom but I managed to pick myself up and carry on.

Then, the crazy random migraine thing hit which had a seemingly endless time frame. My emotional survival switched from IVF mode to recovery from crazy migraine thing mode. It's just so hard waiting. I would feel ok one week only to have a series of seizures and not be able to speak again for a week. I'd get better then worse, no end it seemed. I didn't really know if I'd have to wait a month or a year to start the IVF.

So, the strange thing is that we were so looking forward to the time we could actually begin the process! Most people dread it but I couldn't wait until I was well enough to get the show on the road (or in the ovary in this case).

So, in early March I was sick of being sick. I thought I would throw caution to the wind and get myself ready to start IVF at the end of the month. I had a visit with my GP to renew my referral to the Gyno. I was at the front desk paying, about to leave when the Dr called me back in. "I've just noticed you are due to have a pap smear, do you have time now?" she said. Sure, I said. Nothing to it.

Two days later I got the call back.

They had found abnormal cells, not in my cervix which is most common - but higher up in my uterus. AWESOME. I needed a biopsy with my Gyno. I cried in the surgery, at the front desk, walking to my car and in my car I called Charlie and crying turned to wailing. Why me? Why was I being punished?? I felt like I couldn't cope with any more bad news. I just needed a break. A "break" meaning I could get on with the most traumatic thing yet - IVF!

So the biopsy led to my Gyno telling me she thought it looked ok. PHEW! Charlie and I were high-fiving each other walking out of the office. We just needed some good news - actually just not getting bad news would suffice. I called the nurse at the IVF clinic to let her know that finally, I was ready to rock. It was actually going to happen! The nurse said she would call the Gyno to make sure we were all good to start proceedings.

She called me back with bad news..."I can't tell you any details, but you won't be going ahead this month. You need to see Dr tomorrow".

They found cancer cells in my uterus. I needed to have surgery to have them removed, a lovely procedure called a LLETZ. Teamed with that, Gyno decided to leave no stone unturned by carrying out two further procedures; a laproscopy and hysteroscopy to check out the remainder of my reproductive organs and make sure there were no nasty surprises lying dormant.

I had to wait another two months then before I started the IVF. It was another heartbreak having to put things off again. I felt like I'd never get there. I can constantly hear the clock ticking in the background, soon I'll be 34. Soon, my chances of conceiving even with IVF will decrease.

They always downplay the post operative pain. My stomach was filled with gasses (for clearer vision around my organs). This gas shot pain into my shoulder then back to my stomach every time I moved. Apparently this is a very common symptom and I admit they did tell me this however, jesus, I didn't know it would be so painful or last so long! My stomach looked similar to someone who was expecting - any minute - which added insult to injury! Fashion tip for anyone going through this, leggings and tent tops for winter, maxi dresses for summer.

Apart from finding some mild endometriosis all was well downstairs. All I had to do was buy a bulk pack of the largest pads I'd ever seen, avoid any penis's, tampons and movement and whacko the diddlio, all would be well.... in just 6- 8 weeks! Yay. In case you can't detect sarcasm, believe me it's there.

Perhaps this would be the last test before I would finally reach IVF?