Apparently I have ear and sinus infections.  My dizziness is due to the ear infection and the pain should *knock wood* go away once the two infections are cleared up.  Many prescriptions later (approx 2 weeks to complete) I should be good as new.  I figured I should ask a few other medical questions while I was in the room and had a captive doctor at hand.  After a brief question and answer session, I got ordered to find myself a family doctor (easier said than done around here) since apparently I need a bunch of blood work and other tests to rule out a condition that is running rampant through my genetic tree.  Lucky me.  I’m taking tomorrow off as well since I’m actually worse now than I was this morning. Hours spent in a small room with screaming sick kids made my head feel like it was going to explode. Go figure.  I’m going to load myself up with sprays and pills (per el doctore) and head to bed.

Haven’t had much chance to write this week.  On Monday morning I woke up with a dull headache - being a 20+ year migraine sufferer, I didn’t think much of it - that seemed to be explained away by the massive electrical storm we had later that day.  Of course, since my knee didn’t start aching until later that morning, I didn’t immediately make the connection between head pain and barometric pressure/oncoming storm.

It’s weird how often we rely on our bodies to tell us what the weather will be like…

As the day progressed, my dull headache learned a new trick.  If I moved my head or swiveled my eyes around (i.e. glanced down or to the side) I’d experience sharp pains and a wave of dizziness.  Tylenol and Excedrine Migraine - which does wonders offsetting a migraine if I take it early enough - didn’t make a dent in the pain, so I toddled off to bed.  As long as I was sitting or lying quietly the pain was bearable.

Tuesday I woke to find my friend the headache was still in full swing.  As the day progressed, my eyes began to hurt.  No pretty light show or pulsing/throbbing like I’d be expecting from a migraine - just dull pain surrounding my eye sockets.  When sitting still the pain was at a constant low ebb.  Standing up or walking seemed to be a bit of a challenge.  Oh, and stringing a coherent thought together…

By now you’re probably asking why I hadn’t high tailed it to a doctor’s office.  There’s a myriad of reasons but I can boil it down to two pretty simple ones.

1. I’m used to headaches and eye strain and on a scale of 1 to normal migraine, this didn’t seem all that bad.
2. I don’t have a family doctor.  I know.  Shocking.  Doctor shortages in this wondrous Canadian medical system we live with.  I’ve lived in Edmonton for 5 years now and still don’t have a family doctor.  This means that everytime I need a new epi-pen (I’m allergic to peanuts) or anti-malarials (for travel to India), bust up my foot (broken more times that I can count) or am sick, I have to find an open walk-in clinic.  I tend to go to the same one every time.  It’s easier when someone has a semi-stable record of your medical history.  Anywho, going to a clinic means that you sit in a stuffy room for hours on end (I average 4) while you wait to be called.  Then you go into an exam room and sit for another 15-30 minutes waiting to see a doctor.  Then you spew out your complaint and hope for a fix.  If you take out all the waiting, my experience with treatment has always been pretty decent.  But - if you know you’ve got a headache and will be spending 4 hours sitting in an echo chamber with screaming babies and children - heading to a medical clinic for help becomes a last resort…

Yesterday the headache continued.  It was pretty painful at work but seemed to get better as the day went on.  Perhaps it was the trip to the dentist that did it.  Yes.  Ironies of irony, I don’t have a family doctor but I do have a dentist and physiotherapist.  Go figure.  By the time I got home from work I was back to dull ache in the head and eyes with no dizziness.  Wheee!

Apparently I celebrated too soon.  This morning I woke up with my old friend Mr. Headache and his sidekicks Eye Pain, Motion Induced Dizziness, and Swooshy Jello Head.  I’ve finally given in.  I’m taking the day off work, grabbing a good book, and plonking my ass down in a chair at the medical clinic.  I need to figure out what’s going on with my head - or eyes - or whatever is the underlying cause of the pain.

My papers are finished and submitted.  Dr. Horrible has been purchased and watched repeatedly.  There’s an ex-con dinner planned for this evening.  Only one assignment left for Psych and one paper left for Enviro Chem before exam week in August.  My incredibly expensive text books and course packs for next semester have arrived and I’ve loaded the course packs into binders.  Sometimes it’s very depressing to see what 368$ buys you at a university bookstore…

To celebrate I’ll try to remember how to play a scale and grace notes.  Perhaps after a month I’ll at least be back to where I was before the summer of crazy papers and assignments nearly did me in.

My Psych paper is in and I’ve another 2 days before my Enviro Chem one is due on Sunday. Time to party like it’s 1999.

I probably shouldn’t be taking the evening off of writing, but sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for your friends.  This weekend I am apparently making a lot of them.  Loxley is celebrating her 32nd birthday tonight and we’re headed off with friends on Saturday to celebrate Drew’s 33rd.

All of a sudden I feel very old.  Time was a girl could stay up all night and write a 20 page paper without cracking a sweat.  Now a days I can’t sit for more than a few hours writing before I need a break.  Granted, back in the day I was writing English papers intead of Enviro Chem EIA’s, so that might have a lot to do with why I’m struggling.  Nothing to see here.  No aging occurring at all.  I’m still young and spry.

In case I don’t make it back to the blog before Monday, have a great weekend and don’t forget to hop on over to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog on Saturday to see ACT III.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled paper writing to announce that Act I of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog was so popular (yay!) that the servers were massively overloaded (boo!) and were taken off-line while Joss et al. moved servers.  iTunes Canada had some hiccups with the download process yesterday, but that’s been resolved.  Act I is back online and iTunes is serving up downloads once again.

I am happy to say that I managed to catch it hours before the server began misbehaving (yay!)  but not before iTunes experienced the download issues (boo!).

Favourite lines: “The status is not quo” and “did you notice that he threw you in the garbage“.

I’m off to finish my Psych paper and likely won’t be blogging much before Monday.  Psych is due on Friday and Enviro Chem is due on Sunday evening.  With all the birthday parties and such silliness I have to attend over the weekend, I need to get them off my plate as soon as possible.  Nothing to fear though.  I’ll definitely be watching Act II when it launches tomorrow.