Science project

One last test, The EEG, as illustrated above, was the Monday afternoon test of the day.  I'm not sure why I had it except that it seemed to be a last confirmation that I did not have any kind of stroke.  The test would have been pretty easy except that I had a terrible headache heading into the test.  I'd actually had bad headaches all day on Sunday too that could either confirm that I am now getting migraines on top of everything, or it could mean that the spinal tap had a small leak and fluid imbalance was causing headaches; a known side effect.  But once I lied down, the headache faded a bit and I was able to follow the simple directions: open and close my eyes a few times while lights were flashing and then close my eyes and spend 1 hour trying to go to sleep.

It's pretty cool that the technician sitting in the corner of the room could tell if my eyes were open or closed by looking at electric signals showing brain activity on a monitor.  She was also able to tell when I fell to sleep.  Being Fat Tuesday, I had read a review earlier of where to get the best local paczski and as a result, dreamed of pastry and woke up with too much saliva.  I kept swallowing and swallowing and it was clear I could not go back to sleep.

I stopped and picked up a raspberry paczki at a Dutch bakery on the way home.  It was delicious but my headache returned and I spent the rest of my day in bed.

Tuesday morning was my followup appointment with Dr. Scott.  He was very late in his rounds but when we finally connected, he expressed his confidence that the chemo could continue immediately and that the tests seem to show that there was no evidence of TIA or stroke.  Chalk it up to a weird couple of isolated migraines.  He wrote me a prescription for headache medicine to pick up later and sent me back to the infusion lounge for the full treatment.

Linda got me hooked up promptly and the chair next to me was soon occupied by an older woman accompanied by her sister.  It was their first time.  She was there for ALS treatment, not chemo.  We shared stories and soon figured out that her granddaughters went to City High and in fact were friends of Abby and Marlee. Small world.  Aunt Marge could see that I was suffering from a terrible headache and offered to "rub my head".  I admitted that a good head rub would probably help but of course I could not ask for such a thing from a stranger.
"Nonsense", she said. "My husband gets migraines and I know just what to do."

She went off and found a hot towel to prop under my neck, squirted some lotion into her hands and proceeded to massage my scalp around the eyes for about half an hour.  The headache slipped away. 

No other side effects cropped up from chemo but the headache did return after dinner so it was back to bed.

Wednesday morning there was no headache.  I filled the prescription but clearly the headache phase had passed.  Mary and I believe it was probably the spinal tap.  Now I'm back to killing cancer with chemo and the very limited, manageable, low-grade nausea that comes with it.  One more treatment next Tuesday and then two weeks off.  Dr. Scott will meet with me again on April 1.