I'm lying in a hotel room miles away, voices next door in my ear Oof.

I'm starting 2008 in a strange fashion. I don't know why it started, but I have been suffering with a brutal headache since just after Christmas in Calgary, and it just doesn't seem to want to go away. Drugs of various sorts barely succeed in offering any relief, so you can imagine that I'm getting a little frustrated.

Yesterday, the fifth day of my headache, I finally decided I better do something about it, so Devin came home early from work and accompanied me to the local hospital. I presented myself to the emergency room and asked for a diagnosis and something more effective than the Advil, Motrin, Tylenol and aspirin that I've been taking for days. I'll admit that I felt kinda stupid walking in to the hospital for a "mere" headache - didn't know if I was being melodramatic, but something had to be done.

I was lucky - given my prolonged and obvious pain, they didn't make me wait too long to be seen. After being examined and questioned by a couple doctors, they took some blood for testing and then began to give me drugs through an IV. First, Benadryl, which was apparently to calm me down for the next drug, one that makes most people pretty antsy and restless. The Benadryl made me very chilly (cold fluid running through your blood vessels acts fast), but I didn't notice much other effect. So they started the Maxeran next, which is apparently a type of drug for migraines. Yup, it made me "squirrelly", just as nurse Beth had warned. It was annoying - mostly a feeling that I had to shake my left leg around. I tried using a mind-over-matter technique that I heard recently in one of my yoga podcasts, "you can do anything for a moment". Yes, tolerate that for a moment. It was tough. I kept watching the drip in the IV bag to see if it was almost finished, and it was never close enough for my liking. Luckily, the Benadryl seemed to kick in around then and made me drowsy, so I may have dozed for a while.

I really don't think this thing I have is a migraine, though, so migraine medication didn't really kill the pain completely. I felt fine lying still, but that's true of my condition generally, so once I started moving around again it was clear that it hadn't "fixed" me. So they sent me off for a CT scan, which was sort of a cool experience. They didn't find anything that looked like the source of my discomfort, however (yay, no tumour!). Nurse Beth gave me more drugs at this point - a shot of a powerful anti-inflammatory drug through my IV, and a Percocet pill. The doctor came in and announced that this was likely just a "big bad headache", and prescribed a powerful drug regimen consisting of Percocet, Tylenol and ibuprofen every four hours. We came home after just about five hours at the hospital. And then we partied. Just kidding - I heard the fireworks around midnight from the coziness of my bed.

So that's about all I'm doing now - loading myself up with drugs that make me feel pretty stoned. Earlier I went for a walk in the snow and it was pretty trippy. I think what I really need, however, is a chiropractor. Because it's really when I move my head around that the pain shoots up into the intolerable range. I feel pretty fortunate to live in a country where all of the above treatment was "free" with the presentation of my provincial healthcare card, but frustrated when I realize that it is the chiropractor that I cannot afford. I made Devin walk on my back already, but he's not certified and the improvised treatment didn't have much effect.

So yeah, Happy New Year..!  | ¶ 7:50 p.m.