Stories and Art
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| Nail parlor. A smelly place. Don’t go there! |
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| Puerto Vallarta, Mex. during the Day of the Virgin de Guadalupe. Crowded and noisy but outside. I can tolerate crowds for a little longer outside. |
The most difficult thing for me about having chronic headache disease – and being close to people – is what they don’t see or, perhaps, what I have not yet learned to share. They do ask how I am or how I’m doing, but it tends to end there or with an expression of sympathy. And I don’t follow up with more specifics, what’s going on with me day to day. I don’t know how to bridge this gap without dragging things down into a kind of hole. And I have good friends, who are good people, whom I value highly.
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| Half Seen |
Noise is a big trigger for me. I carry earplugs everywhere. Power tools, ubiquitous TV in airports, incessant advertising when you’re placed on hold during phone calls, music in stores, loud concerts or movies all are annoying and will eventually give me a headache if the noise persists or I can’t get away from it. SO…….. my ever-thoughtful husband gave me a great Christmas present, a new pair of Bose, noise-canceling headphones – delivered to me before we took our annual Dec. trip to Mexico. I was stoked!
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| under PRESSURE! |
Continue reading “Ears and Earphones: These things should come with a WARNING!”
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| Yellow Hibiscus |
I’m looking forward to the possibilities of this just-arrived year with a new sense of relief and lightness. I have finally, not without some regret, retired from my job.
I have loved teaching English as a second language to immigrants for the last 11 years, and my heart will miss my students. This last quarter was a good one, a great group of people, so I was able to finish on a high note, knowing I was still doing a good job. Continue reading “New Year, New Beginning”
Presently, it so happens, a friend and I are in Santa Cruz, CA house sitting for my son for a few days, exchanging the cold drizzle of northwest Washington for crisp, sunny, Santa Cruz fall days. This trip has been especially trying because not only am I dealing with daily migraines, I am also hobbling around, literally, with constant pain of achilles tendonitis. But I refuse to stay home even though it would, no doubt, have been easier.
It takes a huge amount of determination sometimes to just go ahead, make plans, and carry them out even if I’m not feeling at all sure I can actually pull it off. But I have, once again, set forth, in spite of everything. And I’m not sorry. Continue reading “Traveling w/ my achilles heel(s)”
These last 10 days have been verrrrry difficult. I am on a, so called, drug holiday from methergine, which comes around every 6 months like clockwork. I’ve been through this before, but this time I am also taking Venlafaxine (generic for Effexor) which has not been a good medication for me. I’ve had a paradoxical reaction, which means for me it has heightened my anxiety and hypersensitivity to all sorts of perceived negative stimuli. This was all somehow offset somewhat by the methergine. Since I discontinued the methergine, I have been unable to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a night. I am strung out on the one hand, like I’ve had too much coffee, and drooping from fatigue on the other. Needless to say, this is driving me CRAZY!!!! Continue reading “Grateful for what i SEE”
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| Toothy pumpkin w/ crazed eyes |
I’ve always had great teeth and, with fairly good/ ordinary dental hygiene practices at home, no major issues.
I have come to the point in my life where I usually face my headaches and associated symptoms, fatigue, drugs, side effects and more with some level of equanimity or at least resignation – for good or ill. My therapist thinks I should cry more, but I just rarely do.
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| My left funky foot |
However, the last few days combined with the last 3 months of foot trouble have left me gnashing my teeth in frustration, crazy with irritability, pissed off at my doctor and yesterday, definitely on the verge of tears. Continue reading “FRUSTRATION!!!”