Oh, Headache, From Whence Did You Come? (And When Will You Be Going Back There?)

There is nothing quite so debilitating as a really bad headache.  

It's also an obvious target for ridicule, almost.  I mean, who hasn't heard jokes with the "Not tonight, dear, I have a headache" punchline ... or rolled your eyes at someone always complaining about having a headache?

I've long had a migraine issue; in fact, I'm in a unique category of those suffering from migraine headaches (and insomnia) for most of my life.  Yup, I got regularly dropped by headaches and spent countless sleepless nights when I was a toddler.  No wonder I'm not my mother's favorite person ;-)

The idea of having a headache isn't particularly interesting, though, and I'm not self-obsessed enough to imagine that my migraines are worse than anyone else's.

What's of interest to me at this moment is why you can go through life and all of a sudden *bam* get slammed by an unbearable pounding, the inability to tolerate bright lights or any sort of noise, and pain intense enough to induce vomiting.

I'm chatting with Henry at the moment, and I mentioned to him that I've been having trouble coming up with blogging ideas at times.  He had an interesting theory as to why ...

KL: Addie's on her way home from Winter Guard ... one time-intensive activity ends, and the next one begins lol

HENRY: lol
KL: I'm writing a blog piece on headaches   I've been having a hard time coming up with stuff for my personal blog lately ... it's weird lol
HENRY: At least she isn't boring or bored
HENRY: Lol, you don't do the "happy artist" thing well?
KL: Or doing drugs, having sex with multiples, getting into petty crime, or beating up small children lol
HENRY: lol
KL: Evidently not   Actually, I think I will eventually ... I've had some really great writing ideas of late, believe it or not.  Like, better than usual.  The thing is ... well, it's kind of like reading graphic novels ... it's new and different and takes some getting used to
HENRY: True


This ties back to the topic at hand, I promise.

See, even though my migraines are idiopathic (in other words, nobody knows where the heck they come from), there is no doubt that stress plays some sort of role.  The whole root cause of migraines is the constriction of blood vessels, and you probably don't need me to tell you how stress figures in there.

And I guess that's the big mystery at the moment since, as Henry alluded to in our chat, I am happier than I've been in a very long time.  I'm sort of abuzz with inner peace, lame as that sounds.

So I got thinking about what would cause my head to explode when life is so very beautiful, and it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.

Pythagorus has apparently decided that paying child support is optional, which has led to some pretty serious financial strains.  I have to register and inspect both my car and Addie's, for example, and the worst thing--having to tell Belle that things like basketball and Girl Scouts and Happy Meals for dinner (which sounds really bad, but the kitchen is under construction, so we are currently stoveless) are not givens.

He is also doing the disappearing thing again, not answering the phone when Belle calls at the allotted time for six days at a time, answering it on the seventh day, then going back to not answering it the next night.  It's confusing and frustrating for me, so I can only imagine how horrible it must be for a second grader. 

And because I don't want to be that annoying woman that sits around trashing the ex-husband, I keep it inside as much as I can, but the blood vessels in my head are unfortunately an area I have no conscious control of ...

I need to take up long distance running or something ... perhaps yoga.

Anyway, my doctor gave me quite a cornucopia of drugs, so I'm feeling much better now and hopefully the level of this migraine won't be duplicated any time soon.

The stress of worrying about Pythagorus, primarily in terms of Belle but also the kind of distant concern you have when you hear that an old high school classmate has fallen on hard times or something ... I have to just let it go, get a second job to make up the financial difference (since it's obviously too much trouble for him to get a first job), and keep on enjoying the beauty and light that are surrounding my life.

If someone can figure out how to get that message to my cranial blood vessels, though, I'd really appreciate it ...

Migraine Musings

I have struggled with migraine headaches for most of my life. You know the ones I mean, the kind where the only treatment is extended time in a dark, silent room.

Real life does not provide for a whole lot of dark, silent rooms.

I have a migraine right now, a real killer. The light from my laptop is, in fact, bugging it a little bit, but I'm not tired enough to sleep and any light I'd put on to help me to read would be even more of an aggravation.

This is the first really unbearable one I've had for a long time, and I figured that I'd share the treatment that has completely changed a life peppered with headache hells into one where I'll occasionally get a headache but it's not unspeakable (until today, at least, but this is the first real wowser I've had in over a year).

Bear in mind that I've tried any number of migraine therapies over the years, ranging from Coca-cola to Imitrex to aspirin, and this totally straightened things out.

I went to my physical last year and got talking with my doctor about migraines (where we were at in terms of treatment at the time was Percocet for pain--my migraines are ridiculously painful--and Valium for the accompanying neck-aches that go along with them). I was telling my doctor how unthrilled I was to be taking potentially addictive drugs for freaking headaches (I prefer to save the Percocet for when the pancreas is acting up), and she started telling me about a recent breakthrough in migraine treatment.

When my doctor first mentioned that a very low daily dose of the anti-depressant amitriptyline has shown to have very solid palliative effects on migraine sufferers, I got all self-righteous.

ME: I don't think I need an anti-depressant.
DOCTOR: It's an off-label use of it.
ME: But I'm not depressed.
DOCTOR: You're pretty damn depressed when you have a migraine. (I love my doctor)

Anyway, I decided to try it and, along with the occasional Max-Alt (which knocks them down before they can really get roaring), my migraine problem has ceased to be an issue.

I'm not sure what's going on today, other than a certain time of the month combining with a huge degree of stress to create the perfect migraine storm, but I'm just glad that I now feel this way so infrequently.

Overextended

Well, in case you couldn't tell, it's been quite a week ... the reasons being thus:

1.  We had an educational consultant at our school for the week.  I had the opportunity to work a lot with her, which was incredible and I got a ton out of it, but I lost my planning period in the process.

2.  Which is just as well since there is a study hall in my classroom during my planning period, so it's hard to get anything done then anyway because the kids in the study hall want to talk to me and I feel bad saying, "Leave me alone, this is my planning time".  Here is a picture, in fact, of me in the school bathroom taking pictures during my planning period ... it was an upside down kind of day ;)

3.  I had afternoon duty this week.  That means, "Stand in the lobby and keep the kids from killing each other for fifteen minutes."  It's not very fun.

4.  I had late meetings on Monday and Tuesday.  Monday wasn't too bad (got home around 6:30 p.m.), but Tuesday was pretty rough because I had nobody to watch Belle, so I had to leave work promptly after lunch duty, drive an hour to Belle's school, drive an hour back to my school, hope and pray that Belle behaved during the two hour meeting (she did ... she was wonderful, in fact, because one of my friends got her set up on a computer in the back of the library with headphones, so she played PBS Kids games), drive 45 minutes to pick Addie up, and drive forty minutes home (and yes, in case you needed to ask, it was snowing and the driving was terrible).

5.  The migraine from you-know-where started to settle in on Tuesday, probably a combination of stress and a pretty severe bout with insomnia that kept me from sleeping for three nights straight.  Anyway, I took a sick day on Wednesday and slept all day.  Felt much better after that : )

6. I'm a class advisor, and my students are doing a lot of fundraising.  This week we had a Valentine's Day carnation sale, but it meant that I had to spend my lunch time in the cafeteria with my students while they were selling flowers, so I lost my lunch (as well as my planning time) all week.  On a positive note, the flower sale was AMAZING ... we sold well over a hundred flowers, which was awesome (I work at a very small school).

7.  My group of students are putting on a dance tonight, so trying to get everything organized for that has been stressful.  My co-advisor is out on maternity leave, and I have to be honest, I totally took for granted all the things she usually does.  It is very stressful trying to do all this stuff on your own.

8.  I went out with the gang from work last night.  I am no longer 21, which is a fact I sometimes forget ... days of thoughtlessly downing Scorpion Bowls and shots of McGillicuddy and 151 need to be in the past.  Oh, man ... it was a lot of fun, though :-)

So anyway, I have been neglecting this blog because there just hasn't been enough time this week ... to breathe, never mind write.  I'm working hard on my meme, by the way ... I'm quite excited about it, actually :)

How do you handle those weeks when everything just seems to pile into a perfect storm of stress and commitment that make you feel like you should have gone out of your way, at some point in time, to learn how to juggle?

Unsent

In 1998, Alanis Morissette released the album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. It was no Jagged Little Pill, to say the least, but I was reminded of the song "Unsent" the other day. As the title suggests, it's a bunch of letters that she never sent. I never really got the concept ... I mean, if you want to send a letter to someone, just send the darn thing, right?

I understand very well now about wanting desperately to send a letter to someone yet knowing that it's not the right thing to do.

And I'm not going to be all, "You have a small penis and are crappy in bed and are an irresponsible, emotionally manipulative liar" because that would just be juvenile, plus it was not the state of mind in which I composed my "unsent letter" in my mind.

Anyway, here we go ...

Dear Rivershitter (that's an affectionate nickname),

I thought of you today for the first time in awhile. I don't miss you, exactly, but this made me realize how much less I laugh now. You were way deep inside my head, deeper than is healthy, but, man, was it great to have somebody around who found life to be as funny as I do.

Remember the crazy cashier that freaked the fuck out when we tried to give him a twenty and seven cents to pay for a $15.93 purchase so we'd get a five back instead of a bunch of ones and a handful of change (I'm off on my denominations and naturally off on my math, but I know you remember)?

Well, I met his twin brother the other night. Well, brother in spirit, anyway.

I'm at the gas station looking for Excedrin Migraine, and it's behind the counter with the girlie magazines and cigarettes and the freaking Sudafed (because we want no meth labs ... NO METH LABS). I say to the guy, "Could I get a pack of Excedrin Migraine, please?", and he reaches back and grabs a thing of Advil. "No, Excedrin Migraine," I repeat, and he comes up with Tylenol Cold and Flu this time.

I've got a pretty bad headache and just want to get rid of it, so I go around the counter and point at the Excedrin Migraine.

And the guy? He freaks the fuck out. He yells, "You can't come back here, ma'am! If you take one step closer, I'll have to press the button. I mean it ... my foot's on it!"

And I wished with all my heart for that one second that you were there with me, because we would have been peeing our pants we'd be laughing so hard. And, of course, we would have had so much fun just tormenting the guy (although there's little doubt in my mind that "the button" would have been pressed and there would have been police there, and that would not have been good).

Anyway, I backed up, put my hands up, and said, "Never mind, I'll go to Rite Aid," and thought of you for awhile and laughed a lot and got my Excedrin Migraine at the drugstore and wished for just a second that I could tell you that story or that you could have lived it ... it was one for the books, let me tell you.

The logical side of my brain says, "See, it's good you don't hang with him anymore because you would have ended up arrested ... or at the very least further emotionally damaged" ... but, God, I miss laughing sometimes.

:-) KL