Well, I got the infamous botox treatment for migraines yesterday. Paul went with me to keep me company. The scheduler said it would take 20 minutes, but we were there for over an hour, so that’s good to know for the next time (if there is a next time.)

First I put ice packs on my neck and forehead for 40 minutes. This was actually nice because I had a migraine at the time and the ice on my neck helped the pain back down. Then my doctor came in and offered to get me “something for the pain.”
“I have demoral at home.” I said.
“Yes, well you might want something for now because it is 20-25 needle sticks.”

Against my better judgement, I agreed to some sort of morphine related injection. When the P.A. came in I asked if it would make me nauseous, and she said no, probably not. I looked at Paul and said, “It will make me nauseous.” The injection worked quickly and made me sleepy and a bit spacy. Then Dr. Robinson came in with the botox and poked away with the needles. Upon my request she very kindly talked to me about her home country (Ukraine) and how she was surprised at how un-promising the “promised land” was once she got here. I learned about St. Petersburg (stick stick) and Kiev (stick, stick, stick,) and the laid back life of northern Eurpoeans. (stick, stick.) It wasn’t bad at all except for the ugly crunching noise the needle made when it went into the big muscles on the side of my head. Only a few of the pokes really hurt.

Afterwards we walked to the car and as soon as we pulled out of the underground parking lot I felt sick. Ten minutes later I was indelicately throwing up into a grocery bag and begging Paul to “go slow!” around the corners. I spent the rest of the day in bed vomiting everything I ate that morning– including all my meds. Nervous about an allergic reaction, Paul paged Dr. Robinson who found the whole thing a bit mysterious because the pain injection should have been long out of my system. She called in an anti-nausea RX which Paul went to pick up.

Helene cooked dinner for the kids and Paul while I waited for the anit-naseau meds to kick in. After about an hour I felt better and had two spoon fulls of ice chips. Big mistake. I was violently ill for the next two hours. After the first hour Paul came in and said that one of the side-effects of the anti-nausea medication was “nausea and vomitting.” At this point I’m sitting on the floor, crunched up over a stew pot, laughing and crying at the same time. The ridculousness of all this self-approved poisioning was just too much.

I finally drifted off to sleep around 10 and made it through the night. In the morning I could keep water down, and by this afternoon I was doing the toast-ginger beer-cereal thing, so I think I’m not the mend. I can’t stand up without feeling like shit, and I still have a mild headache, but that could just be the dehydration. I should know in 1-2 weeks if the botox is working.

Here’s…um… hoping?

-R

p.s. I wish I was a documentary film maker because I think this could be a great little movie!