Unexpected

Sometimes one gets surprised by the nicest little 'hellos' from the past. I got a little note from an old friend today that truly warmed my heart and gave me a much needed memory jolt. This particular girlfriend, and she knows who she is if she happens to come back and read this here entry, reminded me how easy I used to have it years ago before I realized how darn socially awkward I really am. And aren't so many adults a little more socially awkward than they were say in the 6th and 7th grade? Or, lets say, even farther back. I look at my kids and their ease at going up to most anyone and saying stuff like, "I learned how to play Yahtzee last night with my dad. You want to play?" and I wonder how come I feel totally weird going up and ordering a sandwich at a deli. Of course, I began to ponder why this friend and myself, who were once so close, as well as so many of my other relationships over the years, have sort of drifted apart. Is it because we all choose our own paths in life? College? Spouses? New towns? Did I dabble too much in alcohol and wild living for too long that many of my friends could not deal with me? Was it pure laziness on both sides that friendships and relationships require so much work that it is perhaps easier to create newer, potentially more shallow ones to maintain? (not that I consider any of my current relationships shallow, people, I'm just throwing out food for thought here) As time goes on, you forget how valuable a friend is to you, not because of what they can do for you, but for the way they understand you. You know, that person just gets you. It's a beautiful thing, but because you sort of start to forget and 10 to 15 years goes by, you run into that person and for some strange reason, it's hard to thing of something intelligent to say. Ah, but the gem of it is, that person, has thought about you! And he or she tells you some wonderful stories that begin to bring it all back and it nearly moves you to tears! This was the effect this note had on me today. And I want her to know that the memory jolt was an absolute thing of beauty and awesomeness! I needed it some kind of bad especially when my brain was feeling somewhat like moosh.

I have a short list of great friends right now, in fact, I have more girlfriends than I ever thought I'd have. Surprisingly, I don't feel awkward around any of the fine friends on my list and that's why they make the list. And no, shallow doesn't apply here either. You're all just as deep as you wanna be and I love you looooong time!

Must be the barometer

I'm handling 12.5mg okay on my way, I mean my day, back at work, but my head is starting to hurt. It's not like a migraine status yet, it's just pressure starting from the base of my skull creeping up through my brain. I am CONVINCED it must be the barometer dropping. Just took two excedrine and will have to see if it helps alleviate this extreme discomfort. Why I felt the need to pull up Blogger to write that down, I'm not really sure. I just think it's fabulous that ye ol' iPrism lets me pull up Blogger here at ye old school. Let's hope this pressure alleviates soon or I'll start whining and you know how I hate whiners, even myself.

The Drift

I don't know why, but the coffee seemed good enough yesterday morning, but when I filled up at Sheetz and Lynne bought me a Coke, something seemed amiss. Since when do they sell bottles of flat Coke? I don't say anything, because my friend had bought it for me and who am I to complain? Later, at the tailgate, I open a bottle of Shocktop beer and again, there's no flavor. I'm thinking, maybe it got shook up on the hike over here to the Southside Hokie Club... I had a second one and again, no flavor. It's not that it tastes bad, it just doesn't taste. Then I remembered the email I had received from a girl whose sister also takes Topamax and described a similar phenomena. (except she had described Octoberfest as, and I quote, "goat piss" I shudder at the thought) Luckily, Wahoo-girl was along with me for the this trek to Hokie land and she is my oracle in the realm of migraine drugs. Apparently this is just another one of those things, but my MD says this should pass over time and that it's no wonder people on Topamax lose weight. Wahoo-girl and I managed to get to Hokie land and back in one piece yesterday, enjoying a ball game, dinner at my favorite Blacksburg joint and coffee at this other little dive. 460 was a standstill last night and I found out from another friend today that there was a wreck on it... figures. We perused several old CDs from my collection including Come On Pilgrim and yes, more Sugarcubes!! Many smiles and extreme singing abounded. This morning I was attempting to help prepare the counter for coffee hour at church and found myself staring into a cabinet for some minutes before remembering that I was looking for napkins. I managed to speak to folks coherently at church, including my prescribing MD who is such a kind lady for all the moral support she gives to her patients. In general today, I've been lying around dreading going back to work tomorrow and finding out how I will function with students. I almost feel the need to send out a disclaimer email to co-workers stating that I will be pretty much drifting along for a while until my body gets adjusted to this medication. As far as pain goes, I have only had a couple mild little headaches since beginning the medication on Wednesday night and each time, Excedrine has done the trick. So already, I can see an improvement, even on this low dose. Best news of the week is this: I finally picked out the Dansko shoes I wanted and ordered them from zappos.com and they should be here soon! Yay!

Day 2

Last night's Thanksgiving dinner at Mother's did involve a couple glasses of a light tramenette, Frosty Dog I think it was, as well as a large cup of coffee. Then back to the house around 10:30 for my medication, declining a trip to Smithfield for Black Friday madness. I sat up reading for a while but never did find sleep. Was it the wine or the coffee? Was it the anticipation of waking up for a little internet shopping? Maybe all of it. It was over $200 and 4:00 a.m before I could finally get some shut eye. This probably has nothing to do with the 12.5mg Topamax. Woke up about 8:00 with a dull headache which was easily taken care of with Excedrine. I've enjoyed my day of utter laziness and am now getting ready for Thanksgiving, Round 2 at Dad's house. It will be first time I've stepped foot outside today. I did have high hopes of transplanting some shrubbery today, but nah! How often do you get to enjoy a dreary day indoors with no real pressure? AAAHHHHH! Thanksgiving! I'm thankful!

Embarked upon a new trek

Thanks to my sweet friend, we shall call her Wahoo-girl, I was able to see my doctor much sooner than expected (note to self: call and cancel the 12/3 appointment). Wahoo-girl, whether she realizes it or not, has now signed on to be my personal tour guide through the arena of Topamax. According to the literature, all sorts of things can go wrong with this medication. Somnolence- no problem, I'll take it at night to help with that, per recommendation of Wahoo-girl. Cognitive impairment- while I'm somewhat used to being forgetful and not being good with names and faces, I do have a distinct fear of this worsening. I have a pretty meticulous system of organization at work to help keep all my paperwork in order and on time; I just have to be careful not to let my system implode on itself. Maybe I'll be asking my students to wear name tags before it's all said and done. The rest of you people are just going to have deal with me and answer when I call you by my dogs' names. I do worry about disorientation, I have a history of forgetting how to get to places if I don't go that route fairly often. In fact, I'm driving Wahoo-girl up to Blacksburg on Saturday and I'm praying I won't get us all turned around. Because she is so awesome, I suppose I shouldn't worry too much. I just really don't want to miss kick off. Dizziness- I guess I'll just try to sit down for that one. Again, hopefully taking this drug at night will ward off these complications. Ataxia (or as my MD called it 'funny walking')- If I start doing this, I won't last long on this drug. I wouldn't want to walk around looking as if I'd already tied one on! Apparently, I shouldn't be doing much drinking of alcohol from here on out. This will probably mean dropping my 3 drink limit to a 1 drink limit. One glass of wine at dinner should be no problem. But limiting myself to only one Fat Tire or one Octoberfest, nearly makes me want to cry. We'll just have to slowly test these particular waters.
But here is the point to this entry (oh finally, she makes a point): I hope to keep a little running record here about how my journey into zombie-land is going and at the same time chronicling what my life is like as I hopefully become migraine-free. And then truly my Heaven will be a Big Heaven indeed. And if it doesn't work, well I guess I'm looking at a lobotomy.
First dose- 11/24 (night before Thanksgiving) 12.5mg-followed directions given by Wahoo-girl, ate dinner, plenty of fluids.

It's the little things

Nothing like going 8 days with an excruciating headache to appreciate two days of feeling really really great! What's the difference? I don't know. I've switched pillows like 3 times, avoided alcohol, avoided chocolate and nuts and cheese. Stopped taking magnesium. Increased my B-vitamin. All these things I've done before to no avail. In general, I can avoid all kinds of triggers but I can't avoid my hormones and I can't avoid the barometer. At any rate, I'm thankful for 2 days of feeling really great. Then I also find out what kind of real friend I have in Lynne who actually offered me her closer MD appointment since I couldn't get in any time soon. I mean that's true friendship there. It's the little things but that's a big thing. Love that girl! I think I'll treat her to a ticket to the VT/UVA game after Thanksgiving just to show her how thankful I am!

Owl be seeing you in all the old familiar places...

Please check out this link to see these little cuties made by my good friend Holly-bo-bolly.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/60405736/set-of-3-owls

She gave my kids some of these for Christmas last year and they appeared at Avee's wedding in FULL FORCE! They are the cutest little things and YOU TOO can get some of your very own!

Watching Ese work the LiteBrite

I have calmed down somewhat since my last post (which had to be the case with a marathon migraine and ongoing meds that make my hands go numb and my brain shut down). Over the last several days I have caught on to a couple different facts that had been eluding me from behind a bush. Number one, and maybe I was just in denial about this one, I have to sit out the beer drinking sessions. This is really hard, as it's probably my favorite social thing to do, having a 'cold beer' with a friend. Nothing bonds two people more than a frosty alcoholic beverage in most any setting, including the breezeway, the lakeshore, a friend's living room, a friend's front porch, Hokie tailgate... wherever. Everyone that knows me knows that I drink "weird beer", as KR calls it and I always keep a strict limit of three, no matter the occasion. It's just safer that way. But I've noticed, well duh, even one swallow of certain beers (we'll take Miller Lite as an example) nearly immediately makes my life a living hell for the next day or so. I just haven't been smart enough to say, "No thanks, I'm going to drink just water for this visit." Some people love chocolate. Some love wine. I like both of those things but I'm certain that a good, cold beer ranks right up there at the top for me. So I need to really think about my priorities here. I've already given up most foods with color dyes in them, most auspiciously the cake icing I keep running into everywhere. I tried cutting back on caffeine by cutting out Cokes all together, yet I've doubled my coffee intake so I'm not real successful there either. I'm trying to get more sleep but football games come on so darn late and I become personally vested in them somehow. OR I get sucked into whatever book I'm reading. Beer, check; caffeine, check; sleep, check, food dyes, check... there's a lot to keep straight here. Oh and don't get me started on the hormones and the barometer...
Second, after my last post, I'd like to say that, although I can't retract my earlier statements, my situation is not quite as bad as I imagined them to be. Chris is right in his statement that I very very often look for the worst in any situation before it even manifests (okay, I paraphrased, I don't think he uses the word manifest). The point is, I go off the deep end before there's really a reason to do so. Granted the day I wrote it was a really bad day, there were noises and distractions I'm not used to having around while I'm working. All I could think was, "I can't go months and months with this going on, I'll never be able to focus." Being constantly distracted at home, without any hope of coherency, is bad enough. Do I really have to suffer all day with this level of distraction at work too? But as it turns out, I'm coping quite well and it's not nearly as bad as I feared it would be. And as a wise friend said to me yesterday, "it usually never is." Preconceptions are a tricky thing. Sometimes you set yourself up for total disappointment and disaster and sometimes you set yourself up for a nice surprise.
Third, I never come out the front door unless we have a visitor ring the bell. Yesterday when a neighbor lady stopped in to ring the bell, I was horrified that 4 frostbitten ferns and 2 rotting jackolanterns still resided there on my front porch. Oops. I took care of those babies this evening when I got home from work.
News: El and Ese were Baptized last Sunday which makes them full-on Episcopalian, while their parents continue to drift along as spiritual mutts so to speak. But it's all good, I guess. All that matters is our love for God and His acceptance of us. Period.
Ese had won her class spelling bee a couple weeks ago and confident she would easily win the grade level, she would not study any of the Scripps word lists. She appeared in my office doorway this afternoon in tears as her hopes of winning the grade level bee had been dashed. I remember this feeling oh so well, except when I competed in the school-wide bee as a child, I got my word wrong in front of the whole darn school (at least that's how I remember it). She was only humiliated in front of maybe 5 people. What could I do other than hug my sweet child and tell her how proud I was of her that she at least won in her class? I let her skip a few minutes of her dreaded P.E. class, that helped a bunch! She's been in the bed with me working her Lite Brite, making up her little designs while El is on the other side of the bed snuggled up with ShuShu and JumpHippie, snoring away. Life is pretty perfect at this very moment. I feel very good, my girls are here with me, and after a night of sleeplessness for Mr.B, he's happily dozing on the couch. Right now, I think all four of us are happy as little (insert appropriate simile here).