In the fall of 2006 I started my freshman year at Mesa State College (which is now Colorado Mesa University). It was the beginning of a new era for me, starting a new part of my life. I had recently faced blindness and brain surgery and had made it through all of that, I was ready to start something new and exciting. I was planning to moving on and leaving the last few years buried in the past where they belonged.
My first year of college was a good year. My roommate and I got a long pretty well and I was adjusting to dorm life really quickly. I think that everyone should have to live in a dorm at least for one year. Some how the experience of having a stranger as a roommate, sharing a bathroom with 20 other guys and living with so many people is really impacting on ones life (both positively and negatively, but hey, you learn a lot about other people and even more about yourself). The only draw back to this year seemed to be my sleep. I was still easily sleeping 12-14 hours if I didn't set my alarms and scare myself awake (I have no doubt that my roommate wanted to kill me on more than one occasion). I really didn't think my sleep was that abnormal but it was the inability to wake up that bothered me. I know a lot of people struggle with getting up to their alarms, but this was more like, not even hearing my alarm or even registering it going off. It was like, once I laid down to sleep, I was completely out until my neck began to hurt so bad I would wake up. This would happen no matter how many alarms I had or tricks to wake up I tried.
My classes were going well, though I was struggling in my basic drawing class but my instructor was very patient and helpful. She is an awesome teacher and an amazing woman. I have thought many times these past few years that I would have not made it as an art major without her help that first year. I was taking swimming and working out several times a week that year, all the while my neck would be screaming to stop. I thought that I just needed to suck it up and work through the pain and my neck would get over it eventually. What happened however, was I pushed too hard while working out and my neck gave out while I was lifting. The pain was so immense I ran to the locker room and puked. I was in a huge amount of pain and had a massive headache and was in bed for the next four days. I went the rest of the last semester without working out, I really didn't feel like ever experienceing that ever again.
The Summer came and I came home to Meeker to work over the summer. During this time, my sleep was still bugging me but now I was beginning migraines again. I call them migraines because they were more random and sudden than my headaches I had before my surgery. These would knock me on my butt while the pre-surgery headache was with me every waking moment since I started vision therapy, growing more intense as time passed. But I worked through the summer and was ready to head back to school, towards my friends and my freedom. My sophomore year was a good year, it started out much like my freshman year only I was in a better dorm and had two friends as pod-mates. Like the previous year, I started working out again, only I was taking it more slowly and more carefully than the last time. I head learned my lesson and I had no intentions of repeating it. Right before the end of the last semester, I hurt my neck yet again lifting and was sick and in bed for a few days. But at that time I was more concerned with preparing for my entrance exam and portfolio review into the Design Program at the end of the year.
An art majors life, not unlike many other majors in college, is achieved in the studios. This means that a lot of the time one must pull all-nighters in order to get their work done. I really love that kind of life style because I was already pulling all-nighters anyway, usually so I wouldn't miss important classes or if I needed to be up in the morning for something important. I had just learned I couldn't trust myself when I sleep. This is when I became addicted to energy drinks, mainly Monsters (I haven't drank a Monster or any other energy drink for over 2 years now and I proud of that. I can not however be around anyone who is drinking one, the smell makes me want one so badly. I might even man whimper when I pass them in the grocery store, but that has yet to be proven as fact). Another exciting factor in my life at this time was that I had started to read for pleasure. Reading was such a joy now because it had always been such a horrible task in my world.
(Shameless plug time: this is when I discovered my most favorite book… Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Buy it, read it, and love it!). But enough with that.
Then came my junior year, just before the school year started I received my letter accepting me into the design program and I was excited to be in an actual degree program. It was during this year that my migraines began to increase. I had a system though, I would ignore it for as long as I could, get my work done and head home. I would then guzzle two bottles of water, chug a Monster, take 5 anvil and sleep for 12 hours (not the healthiest thing I will admit but it worked, at least for a while). That usually seemed to kick' em but I was starting to grow concerned about how addicted to monsters I was becoming. I was sucking down at least one (if not more) a day and that just wasn't healthy. So I began the journey of quitting, the only major consequence I noticed was my sleep problem seemed surged forward. But I had learned a trick or two and just figured a sleep problem was my payment for being able to see and read; I was planning on just dealing with that problem for the rest of my life. It was also in this year, I decided that I also wanted my animation degree, which would tack on one more year, making me a five year student.
The rest of my junior year and senior year progressed along, I still had sleeping problems and migraines all the time but I was focused on getting my degrees. Mom had mentioned that we needed to figure something out for the migraines. So I came back to Meeker for a weekend and went to my PCP. She explained that my symptoms didn't sound like migraines but more like Cluster Headaches (again I am calling on wikipedia):
Cluster headaches are excruciating unilateral headaches of extreme intensity. The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid, and most often without the preliminary signs that are characteristic of a migraine. However, some sufferers report preliminary sensations of pain in the general area of attack, often referred to as "shadows", that may warn them an attack is lurking or imminent. Though the headaches are almost exclusively unilateral, there are some documented as cases of "side-shifting" between cluster periods, or, even rarer, simultaneously (within the same cluster period) bilateral headache….
The pain may be very sharp and may cause pain around the eye area and may also be a pain within the back of the eye. The pain of cluster headaches is markedly greater than in other headache conditions, including severe migraines; experts have suggested that it may be the most painful condition known to medical science. Female patients have reported it as being more severe than childbirth…. The pain is lancinating or boring/drilling in quality, and is located behind the eye (periorbital) or in the temple, sometimes radiating to the neck or shoulder. Analogies frequently used to describe the pain are a red-hot poker inserted into the eye, or a spike penetrating from the top of the head, behind one eye, radiating down to the neck, or sometimes having a leg amputated without any anaesthetic. The condition was originally named Horton's Cephalalgia after Dr. B.T Horton, who postulated the first theory as to their pathogenesis. His original paper describes the severity of the headaches as being able to take normal men and force them to attempt or complete suicide….
(thank you wikipedia, you're such a joy).
I was so excited, that was exactly how it felt. I couldn't have put it better if I had tried. So my PCP prescribes a newer drug for migraines called Frova. Frova is an abortive medication that if taken when with the symptoms or signs of an attack begin or even taken during an attack, the medicine can abort the migraine/ headache from happening. She gave me some samples, and they worked really well. I was even more excited, if I could control my headaches the world would be mine for the taking. So I happily and calmly walked (or possibly ran, though there are no witnesses to this theory) to the Walmart pharmacy when I got back to GJ. Once I picked up my prescription, the amount came to $270.00 and I thought, awesome that means there are a fair amount in the bottle. I got to my car and my jaw dropped when I pulled out 9 precious little pills. I began to worry, there is no way I could afford these pills when I was having rounds of 2-3 attacks every other week. I mean to relieve the pain, $30 a pop was worth it but I didn't have the money. When I told mom she was upset and we didn't know what to do. Though I can't remember if we found out from my PCP or someone else but we found out about the NeedyMeds program:
The mission of NeedyMeds is to make information about assistance programs available to low-income patients and their advocates at no cost. The NeedyMeds website is the face of the organization. Databases such as Patient Assistance Programs, Disease-Based Assistance, Free and Low- Clinics, government programs and other types of assistance programs are the crux of the free information offered online.
What happened was we found out that as a college student I could write to the pharmaceutical company, explain my situation, give proof of my financial situation and proof of being a student and I could request help from the company itself. Low and behold (is that the right low? Better yet, is there another spelling of low? Sigh, curse you phonics!) the company wrote me back informing me there were going to grant me free prescriptions for a year! Are you kidding me, what a blessing from God! I'm here to tell you Frova and strength from the Lord were the only things that allowed me to finish school.
Around this time, my first senior year was over and my design degree was finished, I only had one more year and my animation degree would be done as well. In February of 2009 I became addicted to swimming. The first day I couldn't swim 25 meters without my neck screaming, causing me to stop (just for a visual, 100 meters is down and back twice on the short length of the pool). But I was getting stronger everyday I swam and my neck was starting to feel better. By October of 2010 I swam my first mile (roughly 1,609.344 meters). In January right before my last semester of college I was going on a sketchbook class to Rome, Florence, and Paris for eleven days. It was an amazing trip and we walked all over those cities, sketching, eating, going to museums and being all around art nerds! Mom and I joke about that being an amazing start to what we felt was going to be an amazing year. But we didn't really think about what connotation "amazing" would fall under. I was ready to come back to the U.S. and rock my last semester! Thats when it all fell apart.
Wow, who is a little slacker when it comes to blogging these last two months? Me, I am, this kid right here. I have a ton of excuses and none of them are good, so I will just skip over all of that and say the most heartfelt apology I can make, prepare yourself!……..… My bad everyone. :)
Tball
