Monday: Well, at least my headache is gone. What in the world is causing them? I know they are migraines because my doctor, after a complete CT scan and many hundreds of dollar$$$$$ later, told me what they were. The point is, my migraines happen without warning. Other people, and there are many of you, have offered to share their own horrid experiences and how they dealt with them. Some people actually don't experience real pain, rather a sort of dizziness and falling down feeling, with orbital flashing white spots that happen just before the onset. One woman told me she usually knows she's going to get a migraine hours before they occur. Evidently there are many triggers and warning signs to pay attention to. And there are thousands of triggers. Guess what? I haven't found mine yet. I'm still in the avoiding the migraine-enhancing foods stage. I do know one for sure: Red wine. I avoid red wine like the plague. And I'm beginning to think that sugar and sweets are a problem. Chocolate, in particular. Chocolate?! Chocolate is a form of soothing comfort, like a warm quilt. How does one suddenly become "allergic" to chocolate? This is sooooo not fair. A favorite of mine is a recipe of my mothers called $100,000 Chocolate Cake, with an equally delicious chocolate fudge frosting. This I made for my cousin's birthday (Admission: I ate a large chunk at the party, plus the secret licking of the bowl as I made the cake). I woke up during the night after the party with a heaviness behind my right eye, a sort of pushing out feeling like my eye was getting ready to give birth. I took the recommended medication, eventually falling back into a fitful sleep. I can't even imagine how awful I'd have felt the next day at work if I didn't have migraine medication. It sort of dulls the pain, but oh yeah, you know it's there just waiting to surface again, even before it's time to take your next pill. Two days later, the pain was gone.
Friday: The court reporter's meeting. Felt wonderful. Refreshed even. The fall leaves we saw that morning on the hillsides were amazing. The steakhouse in Rogers, where we ate lunch, was just as delicious as the menu pictures, which is a rarity anymore. The staff was friendly and pleasent and full of smiles, a huge rarity, a nice surprise. The prices were so good that we even decided to splurge on dessert, Whiskey Pie. The specialty. YUM! I don't even know what all was in that thing, but it was topped with a round of vanilla ice cream that was melting into the pie before we even dug in. We shared the one dessert, which was rather large. My only worry was would I be so full that I'd fall asleep in the afternoon yawn meetings? Another court reporter, who I sat next to, lives in the area. She told me of a local restaurant that we just HAD to visit for supper, even drew me a map on an Embassy Suite napkin. The specialty? New Orleans food, with an amazing Cajun chef. And I have to say, it didn't disappoint. In fact, we had to wait in line. Dwain and I shared a bowl of seafood gumbo, ate our lunch-size entrees, then shared a dessert the waitress highly recommended, something I can't pronounce, let alone spell, but it involved flaming bananas tumbling over a spongy cake with a pudding middle, all doused in a sauce with a bourbon base. I couldn't even finish my part, that's how rich it was.
Saturday: The pain started sometime during the night. I took medicine and went back to sleep. Saturday's meetings began promptly at 8:30 a.m. The day droned on, and if you can believe this, my headache actually got worse. Much worse. I'm just glad they don't test us on what we learn at those meetings because all I heard on Saturday was ear ringing and head drumming. Everyone at my table asked me what was wrong. I guess because I kept holding a hot caffeine tumbler against my eye and forehead rather than drinking it. Or maybe it was because I looked like that woman in the migraine commercials, you know, the one holding her removed head in her hands?
Obviously, the pain is gone today or I wouldn't be writing this post. I'd be in bed with an ice pack against the back of my neck, a hot pack over my face. No noise. No light. The good news is that I slept all night (about 10 hours) with only one bathroom interruption. Migraine headaches just wear me out, as if I'd run a marathon -- as if I'd ever actually done such a thing.
So Dwain and I are on a mission to discover the cause. Dwain's such a good guy. He was browsing the Internet first thing this morning looking for answers. There is a place called Spark People where you can track the food you eat and your daily activities. On the site are pages devoted to specific issues and interests, but nutrition and weight control is key. I joined a SparkPeople team who deal with migraines. But there are other teams who blog about subjects such as aging, shutterbugging, exercising, allergies, pets, camping. Oh wow, the list goes on and on. Here's one I love, Spark People Arkansas. The problem is, trolling through the site can eat up your whole day. I haven't started a blog there myself, but I love reading what other people have to share. I'm truly hoping that somewhere along the line I will find some answers that will work for me.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Rambling. This post will be a lot of rambling. And it will be rambling because my brain is going 100 miles an hour -- too much caffeine maybe -- as well as my physical self is running hither and yon like a frightened mouse, except that I'm not frightened. I'm trying to do a million/trillion/billion things before tomorrow.
The Car: My Scion (a car made by Toyota, in case anyone wonders - and it's pronounced like this: sigh-on, not sky-on, which is the way Dwain and I pronounced it until the dealer set us straight) eats up highway miles like nobody's business. Because of that, it has to have it's oil changed way more often than I like. AND a Scion can not be serviced at just any Lube-It-type-place. Oh no. It has to go to a foreign car place. This means you can not simply drive up and say, I'd like my oil changed, please. No, you've got to schedule the oil change at least a week in advance and then go somewhere and wait until Dale the foreign car guy calls your cell phone. But anyway, before I could drive anywhere tomorrow, this oil change was a major requirement.
The Grocery Store: Dwain let me borrow his car -- another foreign model, just a wee bit older, say 10 years. It's truly in remarkable shape. Still looks sleek. I should age so well. I dropped him off at the Times office and me and my list took off for my favorite grocery store. As usual, I always forget to put something on the list. Always. Today my list said: peanut butter, bananas, milk and Sweet & Low. You'd think I would learn to quit carrying one of those little plastic baskets the grocery store provides for people who are there to just pick up a few things. Usually by the time I've made it to Aisle Four an employee will ask if he can bring me a regular cart. I think my problem is that I actually love wandering around in grocery stores. I can dream in a grocery store. It's like I'm in a trance because I end up with all sorts of odds and ends. My favorite is produce. This particular grocery store has really lovely produce colorfully displayed on either side of the wide aisles. And they have seasonal displays to catch your eye. For instance, right now they have a spook house thing going on, with pumpkins and apples (caramel wraps sold separately) and candy corn and tortilla chips (Velveeta cheese, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and onions) all arranged creatively around fake spider webs and bats and witch-y hats. Just for a moment I thought about peeking inside to see what it looked like. Can you believe that this baby boomer would do a thing like that? And yes, there was an actual spook house entrance and exit. This grocery store is a terrible place for an impulse buyer.
The Beauty Shop: I make my hair appointments five weeks in advance. My new stylist is Amy F. who became my stylist when new bride Jayme D. left for South Dakota so she could be with her husband, the welder. Can you imagine? She'd seen me through some rough times, completely knew my history and my hair. Now I have Amy who is still getting to know me and my hair. This summer Amy and I decided to do something fun, go a bit shorter. A bit. I could either use my flat iron to straighten it or just let it go curly. It was summer after all. I could always grow it out again. Right? Today Amy didn't even ask me. "I thought that since it was kind of damp out anyway, we'd just work with the curls instead of straightening them," she said as my hair fell. Curls! Everyone in my mother's generation used to tell me how I was "so lucky" to have natural curls. R-I-G-H-T. I'm a child of the hippy generation, hair parted in the middle, bangs and stick straight, not a movie-star child of the 40s. Back then I actually got my very thin, straight-haired little sister to iron my hair. But it never lasted long. Humidity tends to change artificially straight hair into natural frizz, just like that. Oh, wow, said Amy, so proud of the results when she stuck a hand mirror into my hand and twirled my chair around so I could see what it looked like from behind. Curly. That's what I saw. On the up side, Dwain said he really, really like what she had done. Okay. Hope springs eternal. Maybe not everyone sees my hair the way I do. I'll keep telling myself that tomorrow and plead inwardly that nobody avoids sitting with me because I look like a dork.
The New Dishwasher: What more can I say? We have a brand new, plain ol' dishwasher. White with a regular dial and a switch that flips from dry with heat to dry with no heat. It does not have a computer inside. It does not have all these little press buttons that says things like: delay wash, rinse only, high temp wash, status(washing, drying, clean) or cancel. Nope. You just turn the dial. Repairman Kenny says that these less expensive dishwashers have a tendency to, 'last longer than them more expensive models." Kenny likes to run a line of patter the entire time he's working on or installing an appliance. I've learned a lot about many different subjects from Kenny. I even found out where my old high school coach now lives, because Kenny just installed a new washer/dryer for him yesterday. AND he was also Kenny's high school track coach back in 1976. I was stunned. Dwain was stunned. All this time I thought Kenny was several years older than me. His skin is kind of a wrinkly, leathery brown. The years have not been kind to Kenny. But Kenny is honest and very good at what he does and he is someone you can feel safe around when your husband is gone. Kenny is just happy to talk randomly about any subject that happens to cross his mind: copperhead snakes, deer hunting, appliances, Ms. Snooty whose brand new state of the art washer/dryer combo broke down and screamed at poor Kenny, actually threatened to sue him if he didn't fix the problem. Kenny just works for the appliance company, mind you. But the story was very entertaining, especially since I know the Ms. Snooty he was referring to.
Tomorrow: The dogs are going to the dog sitter's house. I can't even believe I'm saying that. A dog sitter? Who knew? Now the dogs don't have to say outside in the damp all weekend. You'd think they would be grateful, but noooo! Dwain and I are traveling to the Fayetteville/Rogers/Bentonville area. We will be camping at the Embassy Suites, sleeping of poofy white clouds. Tomorrow and Saturday I do not have to cook meals or wash dishes or do laundry or vacuum floors or clean cat boxes. I do not have to get up at all hours of the night to let pets in and out of the house. All I really have to do this weekend is collect hours for my continuing education requirements so I can keep my status as court reporter with the supreme court legitimate. Let me say this, I never, ever, ever want to have to take that court reporter test again. Whew. And I used to think that college tests were stressful.
So now I'm off to fold laundry and sort through my closet -- humm, what to wear, what to wear?
The Car: My Scion (a car made by Toyota, in case anyone wonders - and it's pronounced like this: sigh-on, not sky-on, which is the way Dwain and I pronounced it until the dealer set us straight) eats up highway miles like nobody's business. Because of that, it has to have it's oil changed way more often than I like. AND a Scion can not be serviced at just any Lube-It-type-place. Oh no. It has to go to a foreign car place. This means you can not simply drive up and say, I'd like my oil changed, please. No, you've got to schedule the oil change at least a week in advance and then go somewhere and wait until Dale the foreign car guy calls your cell phone. But anyway, before I could drive anywhere tomorrow, this oil change was a major requirement.
The Grocery Store: Dwain let me borrow his car -- another foreign model, just a wee bit older, say 10 years. It's truly in remarkable shape. Still looks sleek. I should age so well. I dropped him off at the Times office and me and my list took off for my favorite grocery store. As usual, I always forget to put something on the list. Always. Today my list said: peanut butter, bananas, milk and Sweet & Low. You'd think I would learn to quit carrying one of those little plastic baskets the grocery store provides for people who are there to just pick up a few things. Usually by the time I've made it to Aisle Four an employee will ask if he can bring me a regular cart. I think my problem is that I actually love wandering around in grocery stores. I can dream in a grocery store. It's like I'm in a trance because I end up with all sorts of odds and ends. My favorite is produce. This particular grocery store has really lovely produce colorfully displayed on either side of the wide aisles. And they have seasonal displays to catch your eye. For instance, right now they have a spook house thing going on, with pumpkins and apples (caramel wraps sold separately) and candy corn and tortilla chips (Velveeta cheese, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and onions) all arranged creatively around fake spider webs and bats and witch-y hats. Just for a moment I thought about peeking inside to see what it looked like. Can you believe that this baby boomer would do a thing like that? And yes, there was an actual spook house entrance and exit. This grocery store is a terrible place for an impulse buyer.
The Beauty Shop: I make my hair appointments five weeks in advance. My new stylist is Amy F. who became my stylist when new bride Jayme D. left for South Dakota so she could be with her husband, the welder. Can you imagine? She'd seen me through some rough times, completely knew my history and my hair. Now I have Amy who is still getting to know me and my hair. This summer Amy and I decided to do something fun, go a bit shorter. A bit. I could either use my flat iron to straighten it or just let it go curly. It was summer after all. I could always grow it out again. Right? Today Amy didn't even ask me. "I thought that since it was kind of damp out anyway, we'd just work with the curls instead of straightening them," she said as my hair fell. Curls! Everyone in my mother's generation used to tell me how I was "so lucky" to have natural curls. R-I-G-H-T. I'm a child of the hippy generation, hair parted in the middle, bangs and stick straight, not a movie-star child of the 40s. Back then I actually got my very thin, straight-haired little sister to iron my hair. But it never lasted long. Humidity tends to change artificially straight hair into natural frizz, just like that. Oh, wow, said Amy, so proud of the results when she stuck a hand mirror into my hand and twirled my chair around so I could see what it looked like from behind. Curly. That's what I saw. On the up side, Dwain said he really, really like what she had done. Okay. Hope springs eternal. Maybe not everyone sees my hair the way I do. I'll keep telling myself that tomorrow and plead inwardly that nobody avoids sitting with me because I look like a dork.
The New Dishwasher: What more can I say? We have a brand new, plain ol' dishwasher. White with a regular dial and a switch that flips from dry with heat to dry with no heat. It does not have a computer inside. It does not have all these little press buttons that says things like: delay wash, rinse only, high temp wash, status(washing, drying, clean) or cancel. Nope. You just turn the dial. Repairman Kenny says that these less expensive dishwashers have a tendency to, 'last longer than them more expensive models." Kenny likes to run a line of patter the entire time he's working on or installing an appliance. I've learned a lot about many different subjects from Kenny. I even found out where my old high school coach now lives, because Kenny just installed a new washer/dryer for him yesterday. AND he was also Kenny's high school track coach back in 1976. I was stunned. Dwain was stunned. All this time I thought Kenny was several years older than me. His skin is kind of a wrinkly, leathery brown. The years have not been kind to Kenny. But Kenny is honest and very good at what he does and he is someone you can feel safe around when your husband is gone. Kenny is just happy to talk randomly about any subject that happens to cross his mind: copperhead snakes, deer hunting, appliances, Ms. Snooty whose brand new state of the art washer/dryer combo broke down and screamed at poor Kenny, actually threatened to sue him if he didn't fix the problem. Kenny just works for the appliance company, mind you. But the story was very entertaining, especially since I know the Ms. Snooty he was referring to.
Tomorrow: The dogs are going to the dog sitter's house. I can't even believe I'm saying that. A dog sitter? Who knew? Now the dogs don't have to say outside in the damp all weekend. You'd think they would be grateful, but noooo! Dwain and I are traveling to the Fayetteville/Rogers/Bentonville area. We will be camping at the Embassy Suites, sleeping of poofy white clouds. Tomorrow and Saturday I do not have to cook meals or wash dishes or do laundry or vacuum floors or clean cat boxes. I do not have to get up at all hours of the night to let pets in and out of the house. All I really have to do this weekend is collect hours for my continuing education requirements so I can keep my status as court reporter with the supreme court legitimate. Let me say this, I never, ever, ever want to have to take that court reporter test again. Whew. And I used to think that college tests were stressful.
So now I'm off to fold laundry and sort through my closet -- humm, what to wear, what to wear?
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