My own little Lifetime Special

Well baby girl slept last night, but momma did not. Bryan and I got her down around 9:30 last night and then prayed to the Good Lord that she would finally find some sleep. We went to bed shortly thereafter and watched a couple of episodes of The West Wing, our evening ritual. Bryan drifted off to sleep around 11:00 and I lain awake. One hour passed and I was still awake. Two hours then three hours passed, still I lain in bed, staring at the ceiling. I wasn't fully awake, just in that groggy, "I know that I'm not asleep, but I'm not really completely wide awake" state. I hadn’t been feeling really great all day, and I was getting annoyed that I was unable to achieve sleep; something with which I often struggle.

It was sometime around three a.m. that I was struck by the lightning. Not in a metaphorical sense, in an actual, literal, “I was struck by electricity in my head” kind of a way. Ok, so a real bolt of lightening did not shoot through my house and hit me in the head. The lightning came from my brain, but nonetheless, I was struck by an electrical impulse.
So there I was, a shock wave shooting down the left side of my face. My eyeball was wiggling around in a spastic way, and I could feel my entire left side going numb. I thought to myself, “$@#&, I am having a stroke.”

Remember, I wasn’t asleep, but also not fully awake. And because of the previous two nights, this was my third night without rest; my brain was not functioning properly.

I continued to lie there, wondering about the severity of the stroke. I thought about whether I would be able to talk, or walk or if I’d be one of those very sad people on “Extreme Home Makeover,” and Bryan would be heroic with his vegetable wife, raising his little baby girl alone, while I lie a prisoner in my body, aware of my surroundings, but unable to communicate. And it was all very sad and very tragic, and an entire episode of Oprah played out in my mind while I lie in bed, feeling my entire left side going numb.

Then I remembered that I should probably stop playing my Lifetime special in my head, but take stock of the situation. I tried wiggling my fingers, they would move, but it felt like they were full of lead. My calf muscles were cramping, and my hands were curling up into fists. My entire face felt numb and rubbery. My heart was racing and a slew of profanity and panic swept through my mind all at once.

And then it hit me: “I’ve been here before. I’ve in fact felt this sensation before…you aren’t having a stroke, you’re having the beginning of a seizure.” And then the cobwebs were shook loose and I realized that I was getting a migraine. “Oh yes, a migraine. This is what a migraine looks like for me. I remember now. What do we do for migraines? We take our medication…but I already took my regular migraine meds before bed. But I have the other medication- the emergency medication, to stop the seizure. It’s in the bathroom in the drawer. The bathroom is over there, across the room. Can you walk across the room?”

And so I laid there another few minutes having a discussion with myself, debating as to whether I should wake Bryan up or not. The migraine hadn’t taken full effect yet; I knew I had about five more minutes before the full seizure-like-thing was going to happen. I didn’t want to wake Bryan up, no need for him to lose sleep as well. So I sat up and stumbled slowly across the room, smashing into the bed, banking off the dresser. I took my pill and made it back to bed with a couple of minutes to spare before the real numbness took hold.

My eye continued to pulse, my face continued to feel rubbery, my calves tightened, my hands balled up into fists and I laid on my back, stiff, waiting for the medication to take effect; it took about 20 minutes.

Bryan got up with Evie this morning and played with her until 9:30. I told him I got a bad migraine in the night, and I guess he could tell from my appearance that I wasn’t playing.

My headache is just a dull roar today and my muscles have relaxed, although I feel like I did a triathlon in the night. Evie did manage to sleep all night (thank God!) Bryan has gone off to work and bless him, he offered (and I accepted) to take his dogs with him. I’m not really sure how that works, and I didn’t ask, but it is much quieter around here today without their incessant howling.