Introduction

Hello, I’m Lori. I have been diagnosed with head pain last year, December 2015. I have trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, a tumor on my pituitary gland, and undefined migraines. I’ve had severe constant pain since December ranging from 3-5 on a pain scale of 0-5. This has been a long road so far, though I realize others have had pain much longer.

I am hoping this blog will help other sufferers (and/or their friends and relatives) find encouragement and possibly someone to relate with. My plan is to post at least once a week. Please feel free to contact me by responding to my blogs. I love feedback and making new friends.

A little background about myself. I have been married for 29 years to my best friend, Bob. I have two awesome children, AnneMarie and Max. AnneMarie has been married now for two years to Andy, and Max has just graduated from Central Michigan University. Bob and I have had an empty nest for a few years.

I have recently retired under disability from teaching mathematics at our local middle school. I also have taught mathematics at our local community college. I have earned my BS in mathematics and my MEd in Secondary Mathematics Education. I have not worked since January 29, 2016 due to pain. I had helped develop my position at the middle school, teaching struggling mathematics learners in the middle school. I was researching this same subject and working on it as a dissertation for my doctoral degree, which I have dropped from.

With the loss of my job, I have also lost my car (Taurus Sho). I loved that car! Bob and I have had to do quite a lot of financial figuring to make ends meet. We have lost almost half our income and gained medical expenses and traveling expenses to regular medical appointments, which happen to be approximately 150 miles away.

There has been a great deal of adjustments to make in these last eleven months. I have done as much research as I can, though my abilities for such has lessened. I find it very difficult to read for more than a few minutes at a time and I struggle with focusing on any task such as knitting, painting, listening to books, conversations, etc. Such focus increases my pain greatly. I am no longer able to listen to music, go to hockey games, or do any activity that involves noise. Noise is my greatest trigger for increased pain. Along the way, I found that I have fibromyalgia. This along with my pain causes me to be less active. I have gained 30 pounds since March. My doctors tell me its partially the pain meds and partially the inactivity but not to worry about it for now. It is difficult to ignore and makes getting around more difficult also. Seems to be a double negative which does not equal a positive because we are not multiplying here (sorry, math joke).

There is so much going on in my mind and so little I feel I can physically accomplish. More to come later…