Thanks so much you guys!!
It really is great to have a med that is finally doing something right!! See? I knew there was a reason I didn't give up trying all these crazy things for all these years!! :-P For my trouble, I got blasted with one hell of a bad migraine tonight, but it's okay because it's not happening every day now - my baseline of pain is so much lower it's not even funny. Some days I actually wake up and think, "Wow. Do I have a headache right now? Barely!" At those moments, it's as good as being PF. I never thought a "3" would make me THAT happy. Might as well be a 0 because it doesn't affect my mood at all! I try to stop myself about 50 times a day right now and say, "Isn't this freaking awesome?!?!?!"
As I said, the CH are still there - but when I had the nerve stimulator, the CH were gone for a couple weeks at a time even, and that was wonderful but the migraine still sucked. I was still much happier because when one of them is almost gone, it makes my life so much more enjoyable. Right now, I'm getting the CH's anywhere from 3-6 times a day unaborted/somewhat prevented with frova and amerge, but I enjoy the times between them so much better because I don't have that constant hellacious underlying pain that never improves between hits, even when the worst of the CH is gone. (On days I work, I take frova or amerge preventatively as per my neuro so that I can function as a neonatal nurse without CH's putting me out of commission several times a shift. I am very very fortunate in that these meds generally do hold the majority of CH's away for me while at work. So I take the hits and use O2 on the off days most of the time or outside of work, but it is nice to be able to function at my job, which I care so much about, without the quite horrendous interruption of CH most of the time.) So now I'm even MORE excited to get the stimulator back because maybe, just maybe, there might be a day when I can truly say I don't have a headache right now. That would be it - I think I'd die of happiness.

Sounds so simple, doesn't it?
Were it not for you all here - and I mean all of you - I would not be the person I am today. I found this place back in 2003 at the start of my CH journey, but just a few years into the chronic migraine as well. It was a difficult time, and a confusing time for me, and I will never forget those that really helped me sort it all out. If I could just express in words what I feel in my heart, it would sound so much better than this!
What I want more than anything in the world is for everyone to feel this level of pain reduction and joy. While life still holds all its ups and downs, it is so much easier to face with the constant pain not having such a strong hold...at least for now. No matter how long it stays that way, I will enjoy every second of it. Between hits, I just feel like I can finally breathe a sigh of relief not to have the CH drive the migraine up to levels that were really intolerable to exist in after the CH was gone. I was like, "OK I'm not dancing right now but my head feels like it's going to explode." Who functions under those circumstances? Sometimes I think that if most people felt how many of us feel on a daily basis, they wouldn't think twice about calling out from work and crawling in a hole. But we persist on - with the strength of each other.
Thank you Deej and Steph for this place, which means more to me than words can ever say!!
/end cheesiness
Love you guys and PF wishes,
Carrie