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Posts tagged migraine

Lost

Another day wasted on an early morning migraine – 7:45 am this time. So on the plus side, I didn’t have to bike to school in the heat. Though I did miss my students turning in their essays, which is a shame since I kinda like to keep an eye on how things are going there. Lewis managed to pick them up for me later, and so at least I’m not behind on my grading. I got sadly little work done today, though I did read a paper and write the first section of my neuroscience essay. Mostly I just wasted my day, waiting for my head and eyes to feel like they were done being pressurized. 10 day to go or so, eh? Maybe that’s what’s stressing me out.  But for the record can I just slip this in: Three migraines in four weeks?  What the fuck?

Buggered again

Woke up rather late this morning after a long and excellent night last night.  We pulled together an impromptu barbeque and pool party with some of our linguistics friends last night.  Had a really good time – cooked some tasty food, poked around in the pool, played some games, had lots of laughs.  I really enjoy my cohort!   And we had the luck of Lewis’ parents wanting us to look after their dog in the evening anyway, and inviting us to have the party at their place.  Such luck!

This morning as sort of a bust, sadly.  I got a migraine sort of right after I woke up – didn’t even have breakfast or anything.  I’m pretty bummed out.  I was even supposed to be going in for another scanner session today with Lewis, and I had to cancel.   I might have been able to handle it, but I always feel like.. I’ve been up reading in the dark all night and I’m hungover.  That’s the best I can describe it.  Usually I get these migraines in the afternoon and can kind of coast until bedtime and sleep it off, but this 10am business is just not great.  I did take a nap later and wore most of it down, but I’ll be glad to get some real sleep tonight and wake up refreshed in the morning.

Despite it all, I got a lot of work done today.  Skimmed some book chapters, and skimmed over the stuff I might want to go over in sections this week.  I even charted out what I need to do in the next few weeks to get ready for my term papers and final presentations.  I’m going to make it… Just three weeks to go, and then I’ll have so much time, I won’t even know what to do with myself.   That’s going to be so sweet!

Ye Olde Laure

Odd day today, but much productive.

Got up really early.  Woke up at my usual weekday wakeup time, 6:30, though it was in fact Sunday and I had every intention of sleeping in.  Eventually got up at 7, and spent a nice leisurely time working on fixing some pyjamas I had made with my sister that were too big.  So I ripped stiches and listed to NPR until Lewis got up and was ready for breakfast.  Got a lot of reading done after breakfast (I love it when papers go faster than you anticipate!) and then spent an hour at the gym.

Got home and had lunch, and just in time for me to start working again… sadly I got another optical migraine.  I had been hoping all this focus on de-stressing and the exercise I’ve been getting to do so was going to prevent these… and it’s been a few months since I’ve had one.  But it’s the midway point in the quarter, and I had a relatively stressful week.   Looking on the bright side, even with the migraine, I’m feeling much less stressed out than I was last quarter, and I at least seem to be staving off a majority of the panic attack-y heart palpitations.  And the migraine was smaller and less disruptive than it has been.  I took a rest with Lewis (who was napping anyway!) while it played out, and even managed to eventually get rid of that post-occular muddle-headed feeling.   So… oh well.  I’ve got more relaxation work to do before I’m out of the stressed-out woods, I suppose.

So I had a lazy evening, since I got so much work done this morning, and spent all night watching PBS (Nature + Masterpiece Theatre!) and working on these pyjama bottoms.  They turned out really great, actually!  I fixed all the things that went wrong the first time.  I put elastic and a tie in the waste, took something like four inches off the whole piece (as in overall width) and put the cuffs on.  All this was nicely easier than the Lewis PJs, partially because I’m doing it for the second time, I’m sure, but also the fabric is less stretchy and picky, and I didn’t bother with any piping or fancy stuff.  So the end result – revamped them entirely in just one day, and now they fit, and look nice, and are very comfortable!  I’m proud of how they turned out since I freehanded the repairs.  Soon I’ll put up pictures of both the Lewis and the Laurie PJs so I can properly crow about my work.  Yay!

Daylight Somethings

I have not adjusted to this time change.  It’s 10:00 and here I am, completely exhausted again.

It was a pretty darn good day, though.  It’s always encouraging to start off the last week of school!  And as a bonus, we had a Quechua linguist-guy visiting our class this morning.  He was only going to sit in for an hour or so and watch us work, but in fact he gave us a very interesting 2-hour lecture and used up all our time!  So we didn’t have to do our dialogs, and didn’t even correct or turn in our homeworks.  Thus, we also didn’t get any more work assigned!  Best class yet.   Neuroimaging was good and short today (as it is every Monday), so it was a real smooth day.

I did also go to see the doctor (nurse practicioner, it turns out) about these migraines though.  I was looking forward to having that taken care of.  So there isn’t actually any real news from the visit.  My nurse is great.  She thinks the headaches are some combo of hormones and stress, and that I don’t have to do anything about them unless they really get in my way.  We can try messing with my birth control perscription, or they could perscribe me migraine medicine or something that has the effect of migraine mitigation (anti-depressants, blood pressure medicine) if I wanted… but one crap day a month sounds a hair less bad to me then being on medicine every day I don’t really need.  So for now, no change.  But good to know that it’s non-life-threatening and that I’ve got escape plans if I need them.  Nurse said I could even see the neurologist if I wanted… ooo.  Anyway, sort of a relief to know the headaches are not a huge deal, just another minor annoyance to deal with in life.

So I triumphantly rode home, got all my work done, baked cookies, and concocted dinner.  I’ve discovered that one of my best cooking resources is some innate ability to conjure up a version “KC’s Rice Surprise”, my Dad’s magical never-the-same-twice refridgerator meal.  Boy, Laurie’s Rice Surprise was sure good tonight.  Verrry spicy, and full of kale and collard greens and rice and red beans and ground beef.  Mmm.  It did have the odd effect of making my fridge as seemingly full as when I started though, since I somehow managed to create twice as much rice surprise as the rice I was attempting to use up.  Ended up going right back in the same tupperware it came out of!  Oh well!  It’s at least a little tastier now.

Day, obliterated

Blah, blah, blah, migraine.  Blah.

LSA / My eyes explode

Well, I’ve been in the Bay Area the last few days, putting in my part of the grunt work at the LSA annual conference.  Not feeling like the conference was much of consequence, so suffice it to say that I didn’t see much in terms of content.  I was scheduled to work during most the things I would have wanted to see, and managed to miss (through my own poor planning) the only talk I had intended on catching, by an old advisor of mine.  Oh well.  The real plus of the whole thing was getting to meet some new friends from other schools, hang out with the Davis crew, and see lots of folks I haven’t seen in ages!  I feel well socialized.  I even had one of the professors from Davis bring a famous linguist-guy over to to introduce me and told him about what a great project (my Russian variation paper) I did and how promising I was.  I’m rather flattered, though that’s not my field or direction.

What was of great note from the last two days are two different things.  First of all, Lewis and I were staying with Nina and Jimmy, and it was really awesome to see them and get to hang out.  It’s always so nice to get to stay with friends!  Especially ones you don’t get to see as often as you’d like.  But even better, Nina had an appointment to try on some wedding dresses this morning, and asked me to come with her!  It was great to get to help out with some of the wedding stuff, since I’m not positive we’re going to make it to New York later this year (though we’ll try out best!) and it’s always nice to be able to offer a sturdy shoulder and meagre advice.   I was so happy to oblige!

My other weirder and less-cool news of the weekend is that I had an occular migraine (without accompanying headache) in the middle of one of the few talks I was able to attend.  It was supremely weird, since I’ve never had one before.  Started as a little smudge in one part of my vision, something like having stared at something really bright for too long, but more smooshy than bright.  Anyway, it expanded to a sort of semi-circle before too long and at times completely obscured my peripherial vision on one side.  It was in both eyes, so it wasn’t an eye thing… anyway, I paniced and bailed out of the talk as soon as it was acceptable to do so.  Ran up to where Lewis was on duty, and he thought it sounded like an ocular migraine, which his mom used to get.  A phone call to the UCD advice nurse on duty assured me I wasn’t in dire trouble (though she said they “didn’t do eyes” so she couldn’t tell me much else).  I talked to Francie for a while and she really calmed me down and made me feel pretty sure that’s what had happened, though I’m gonna hit up an eye doctor in short order to rule out everything else.  Poking around on the internet this evening seems to pretty much confirm it.  I even found little diagrams that look almost exactly like what I saw, so it’s pretty suggestive.  Anyway.. I’m slightly unnearved, but thankful it seems to be nothing more serious than perhaps too much stress, too little sleep, and a little bad luck.  And no head ache, thank goodness.

All in all, a pretty successful couple of days!  January marches on.  I have a big week ahead of me, and then my sister will be here!  Yay!