Scooter Chronicles

On December 30th, Marcia will be taking a big step towards controlling her migraines.

We had heard about a hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan that specializes in helping patients with head pain. It’s called the Michigan Head Pain and Neurological Institute. We hadn’t thought about it much, or looked into that until my sister-in-law set up an appointment for herself. She had been suffering from headaches since the birth of her second son. After two and a half week stay, she left pain free, or at least with them under significant control (correct me if I am wrong with any of that info, Jodi). During her time there we found out that after an initial appointment, if they decide to take you on, they call you when a bed opens up. They only have ten of them. But when you get there, they keep you there until they figure out how to cure or control them. This is a major difference from the Jefferson Headache Center in Philadelphia that most doctors push Marcia to see. Though in Jefferson University Hospital, it is just a doctors’ office, and they run you in and out like someone coming in for a check up. They take no significant steps in helping cure the migraines. They only would prescribe certain meds to control them.

As you can imagine, Marcia is still nervous about going there. I am sure it will hit her more the closer we get. She scheduled this first appointment with them to coincide with our trip to Michigan to visit my family for the holidays. We don’t want to take the chance and stick around, waiting for a bed to open up, so we will be driving home the following day. But hopefully we will be driving back out soon after to start the treatment.

During that time, at least what we have set up for now, Nigel and I will be staying with my Mom and Dad during Marcia’s stay. I will be using my vacation time, and hoping that I don’t use it all up during this time. I also hope to convince Marcia that if she is feeling comfortable there, that Nigel and I head back home so that I don’t eat up more vacation time, and so that I don’t become a problem with my employer not being there for such a long stretch. But we still need to discuss that in greater detail.

We already discussed this with the Pastor of the church Marcia is working at. He is very understanding of the situation, and only asked Marcia to write a letter of her intent to return to her job after her treatment.

We are hoping that this step will be a big one and put her on the right path to living pain free. There have been many patients that have gone to there and have walked away and remained pain free after.