The story of Candace
This previous week I suffered from a a virus, likely just a bad cold; however, because I have asthma, occipital neuralgia, and atypical trigeminal neuralgia, my cold quickly turned into something I couldn’t handle.
It started as a sniffle and a light cough. A few days later, the cold had moved to my chest, but my cough was productive. This cough, though, increased the pain from my ON and ATN, not out of control, just more noticeable. The kind of increased pain that makes your heart clench a little and begin preparing for the coming onslaught.
The next two days were the worst feeling as the overall body aches set in and my asthma became very bad and made breathing extremely difficult. Even though those lessened by days 3 and 4, the toll on my head from the coughing had been taken. Not only did the the constant jerking motions from coughing hurt, but the clenching and, ultimately, the tightening of the neck and upper back muscles brought my pain to such unmanageable pain levels, I was beyond your normal level 8 on the pain scale of just staring off into space listlessly.
It took an emergency trip to our clinic doctor for a pain cocktail to try to break the cycle and some powerful meds for the virus to get me back on track.
The doctor said for anyone else it probably would not have been a very significant issue, but for me with my asthma and neurological issues it was the perfect storm.
My husband was amazing support through it all. Without him I honestly couldn’t have made it through the pain levels I experienced on the day we went to the doctor. It was like a like my head was slowly burning away on one side from constant electricity running through it, my eye was going to pop out, and the back of my skull and forehead were going to explode. These aren’t euphemisms. I mean these things literally.
Just another reminder that I have to be diligent around others, who are sick, so I don’t get sick, as well. I don’t think I could handle that, again.