It's My Party and I'll Cough if I Want to

9 pm

83/63 105 bpm (standing)

What a cranky last week and a half it's been. I turned into a total "pothead". Not smoking the stuff, but I got a POTS migraine that just wouldn't quit. So instead of going down on topomax which my neurologist and I were trying to do, I put myself back up to 200 mg a day. And it seems to have worked. So now I have the hormone (monthly) migraine for 2 weeks a month, the regular migraines ocasionally, and now the POT migraines. Pothead. Great. They're brutal. Not as brutal as the hormone migraines, but just a point or two lower on the 1-10 misery scale.

And then my biggest fear came to fruition. Despite my obsessive hand washing after the subway and train rides to work, and in-between, I caught a cold last Thursday. During the second giant snowstorm to hit NYC. I've been home from work since. I am going back tomorrow, on my birthday. And I will cough! And blow my nose, for the 4,563rd time this week.

I have not caught a cold or had any other "normal" illness since the dysautonomia hit last August and I have feared that happening. And my fears were realized. My blood pressure has been lower than usual - 65/49, 71/54, 67/52, and my heart rate has been 101, 112, 103, 100, etc. And so where a cold in the past wouldn't keep me out of work for 3 days, it did this time, because I'm just too damn dizzy to leave my apartment!

The monkeys of dysauto complicate everything! They're just such opportunists! Oh, she's got a cold! A sore throat and now a cough?? Let's lower her blood pressure even more so when she stands up she's gonna pass out! Tee he he he he!!!!

Well I'm tired of watching reality tv and reading 3 books on my Kindle, and boring my poor dog to death. I'm hauling my butt out of bed tomorrow to go to work and get out in the world even if I still do feel like crap. I only have to make it through two days until the weekend and then I can rest again. Well, sort of, my family and I are celebrating a bunch of our birthdays together on Saturday so I'll be getting on a bus to go to NJ once again! But I look forward to that.

And I look forward to going back to the gym. Eat, work, exercise. That's the routine that keeps my head above water. And this week, celebrate my birthday, my first having this insidious syndrome. Welcome aboard POTS. Welcome aboard OI. I hope you don't mind, when I blow out the candles, that my wish will be for you both to go away...