head karma

Karma has landed again.  This time it isn't plane karma...this time it landed square in the middle of my head...

It started out a few weeks ago with a broken tooth...no biggie I thought I can deal with it when I see the dentist in November.  After all, there's no pain, and no pain means everything is ok usually.  I check it with my tongue every now and then and make SURE I brush, floss, gargle and chew on the opposite side.  I don't usually chew on that side, and that means I have bitten holes in my cheek a few times because my bite is skewed, but heck, this isn't nearly as bad as some stuff I have dealt with in my life.  My dentist would be proud of me too.  After about the third day of flossing, my gums stopped bleeding...and my teeth actually look better than they have in a while.  This broken tooth might actually be a good thing in the long run, making me less lazy about dental hygiene.  (By the way, why is it called hygiene?  That word always makes me think of someone who has B.O. and needs to be scraped clean like a muddy windshield.)

Then about a week and a half ago or so, I am not sure because I didn't notice it wasn't going away until it didn't.  And that would be the headache.  It started out feeling like a stress headache, you know the kind you get that starts in your shoulders when you get tense and stressed about something, then travels up your neck and lands on your head, making it hurt to move or turn.  Well, I realized after almost a week that I WASN'T STRESSED ABOUT ANYTHING!!!  I mean, life is good right now.  My friend from Alaska is visiting and life is sweet.  Then a couple days ago I notice that my shoulders don't hurt.  Just my neck...it is starting in my neck and goes up my head.  I tough it out because I have such a high pain threshold, until it gets on over the top of my head to my eyebrows, then I take Ibuprofen or Excedrin Migraine, even though I know by now it isn't a migraine.  I've had those and this one is centered right in my neck... sheesh what else can happen I am thinking...

Then on Friday night I find out what else can happen...I am cleaning the house a bit and just dinking around, killing time until I pick up Manda from the airport...when all of a sudden I see these black streaks in my right eye...kind of like cobwebs...they are kind of fascinating and I watch as they turn green and yellow...then go away... and a bit later I notice these flashing lights around the edge of my vision in the right eye...kind of distracting...very distracting in fact...

I tell Steve and he says "do you want me to go to the airport with you and drive?" and I know that I will be leaving for the airport about an hour after Steve is usually in bed and I figure it is easier to deal with flashing lights in my vision by myself, rather than have to deal with flashing lights AND Steve half asleep at the wheel.  So I tell him no, I am fine and can drive just fine.

I lied...I had my distance contact in the right eye and my reading contact in the left eye, which meant I was pretty well blind in both eyes, but my guardian angel was sitting on my shoulder and I only took one wrong turn the whole time I was gone, got Manda and made it home fine.  The hard part was figuring out which flashing lights were headlights from oncoming cars, and which were the headlights that were a permanent part of my right eye vision...

So here I sit this morning waiting to go to the doctor and get a referral to a specialist for what is probably a tear in my right retina (being a nurse can really suck when it is you as the patient and you know too damn much about medicine), and I am hoping it is only a tear and doesn't detach too...because I know there is a one in 10,000 chance the retina will detach, and involve lots more than just a tear does...

I also know my luck sucks and I never win anything...and I figure this will be the one time I do win and am one of those unlucky 10,000.

Oh well...boo hoo as my favorite chef Julia Child says...so I have head karma...

This too, shall pass.