I generally get headaches a few times a month, sometimes more seriously than others. I’m prone to migraine-like pain that’s light and sound-sensitive, and which only goes away when I lie down in the darkness and sleep for a few hours.
As anyone who reads my LiveJournal knows, I went to BayCon this weekend. BayCon is a science fiction convention– lots of fun. Not much sleep. I slept in a friend’s RV on Saturday and Sunday nights. Saturday was no problem, and I felt a little sore and tired (one of the friends in the RV snored a little loud for my sleeping ability), but otherwise OK. On Sunday, we ran the generator so the white noise would drown out any snoring and I could sleep better.
Well, the generator did as required, but I left the window next to my bed open for about an hour or so while it was running. The next morning, I woke up with a blinding headache. Took 3 ibuprofens and went off to the con. Felt kind of groggy and still headachy all day long.
Now, this isn’t much worse than a typical bad headache for me. Certainly, this is not the worst headache I’ve ever had, and it didn’t come on suddenly or anything. Throughout the day, it fluctuated a bit, going from just painful to excruciating and dropping down to what I would call “moderate” (but someone else would probably call very painful). I was still tired and everything, and I left the con at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
After I got home, I stripped down and went to bed– didn’t even take a shower, even though I needed one. I napped from 3 until 5, then had a kind of brain-dead dinner with TV– not really concentrating on anything and very “spacy.”
At 8, the friend who owns the RV called to point out that she and her partner also had had headaches, and the lack of a breeze Sunday night might have meant some carbon monoxide pooled up under the RV. She did not know about the open window at this point, and I forgot about it until we were in the car on the way to the hospital.
Yes, the hospital. After this revelation, John goes on the ‘net and looks up symptoms of CO poisoning. Headache, fatigue, confusion (he could tell I wasn’t concentrating well), difficulty breathing (I was breathing heavier than usual, but it might have been from the smokers at the con), etc. We call the 24-hour nurse advisor line for my insurance, who suggests that, if CO poisoning is suspected, that I should call my doctor or go to the hospital, since I don’t have an on-call doctor yet.
So, off to Dominican we go.
They put me on oxygen about an hour after I arrived, took a blood sample from my artery (that hurts, by the way!), and determined that my pulse oxygen was normal, but since my headache was going away under the O2, it was probably a CO problem clearing up. If I have a headache today, I’m supposed to see a doctor.
Did I mention I woke up with a headache today? I am not going to the doctor, though– I can’t really miss work, and I think it’s just one of my standard “stress and fatigue” headaches from not sleeping well and such.
So, that’s the great saga of a headache landing me in the ER. I swear, I probably could have just toughed it out– I mean, the Tylenol I took at about 5 was certainly helping. By 7ish, it was no longer light and sound-sensitive, and I could turn up the volume on the TV loud enough so John could hear it.
This morning, I slept in and got to work at about 11:00. I guess that means I’ll be here until 8, to get all my work done. Oh, well. At least I don’t have to file for PTO for this morning if I do that.
