Migraine Awareness Month #3

Subtitle:  Just Shoot Me Now!
What’s your worst migraine trigger?  Can you avoid it?  How do you handle it?

Heat in any form is my worst enemy.  I’m so lucky that I left Tucson, a city I adored, to live here in Oregon.  Not that low pressure systems and rain aren’t triggers too, but the big double-barrel shot gun trigger for my migraines is heat.

And it’s comically ironic that I’m my own worst enemy in the high temperature department.  Between hot flashes and a hyperthyroid that produces heatwaves, even small activities can leave me feeling as sweaty as a basketball player.  However, I cope where I can – having fans going constantly and opting for air conditioning over heat in the car.  After errands or shopping, I hydrate with lots of water.  I do chores in small increments.  I seek shade whereas I used to worship the sun. 

The only time heat becomes impossible for me is when we vacation with relatives.  A few of them raise the thermostat to 80° or higher, and I wish I were joking.  I wrote a post on just such a wonderful trip in November “Can’t We Compromise?” That entire time I sat near an open window. Not exactly the best way to spend a weekend get-away.

Maybe in another life I was a penguin.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation

The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by http://www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com

Migraine Awareness Month #2

Subtitle:  Tea for Two (what living person would we invite to share tea to explain our migraine disease for better understanding?)

My “tea for two” person is definitely living, but I haven’t met him or her yet.  This person isn’t hypothetical.  Right now we exist in parallel worlds, sharing the same Oregon gray skies and breathing the same cool Northwest pre-summer scents of clean, forested air.  We have a future date where we will come face to face, and although the date is approaching soon, it hasn’t been set.

My invitee is a Social Security Disability Judge.  Just conjuring up the image of a stern, black-robed, judicial ruler fills me with serious intrepidation.  My fate will be in this person’s final defining-moment gavel bang.  Surely there’s so much more to who I am, and how migraines have impaired my life other than what’s been recorded in the bundles of papers I’ve submitted over the last two years.

Therefore, if it were possible in this universe to invite Your Honor to tea, I’d take that opportunity.  I’d also offer Your Honor any blend of tea or coffee so desired.  And then I’d get down to the explaining part.

I would tell the judge that migraines have not only interfered with my work in social services but have greatly impacted every other facet of my life.  There’s no predicting when the migraines will come and go, but I can count on them being there at least twenty times a month.  My work record won’t show numerous absences because I tried hard to troop out the many migraines I had.  For the longest time in my career, the migraines would more frequently implode after work as soon as I relaxed.  They ruled over my evenings and weekends.  It was like I was a wind-up toy trying to keep going, and the moment I stopped, the simmering headache would blow up into a pounding, stabbing migraine.  For years, I fought the low level migraines at the simmer level while at work, only to have to deal with the impending migraine at home.  My husband and children were the ones who often went without a functioning wife and mother, not my bosses and co-workers.

Eventually however, my migraines hammered with more frewuency and intensity no matter what I was doing.  During the last ten years, they have become a near constant companion.  Even though I don’t work, the migraines haven’t stopped, but I can sleep-in longer, and they’re not as severe as when I did work.  I would try to help the judge understand this:  that migraine disease is real, that it is disabling, and that I have tried to make work “work” for many years.

I would want the judge to sip the tea, look me in the eyes and see my sincerity.  I’m not looking for an easy handout.  I might still be trying to work if it hadn’t been for my husband.  He knew first hand how debilitating my migraines were (and still are) to the point of saying he didn’t want me to work anymore.  Now because of my work stoppage since April of 2010, his retirement plans have been put on hold.

I wish this tea for two could really be.  I’m more than the sum total of doctor visits and treatments tried.  I am a migraneur.  That is the simple truth, and until there’s a cure or a miracle, I shall remain one.  Thank you Your Honor.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation

The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by http://www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com

Migraine Awareness Month #1

Brake.  Release.  Inch forward.  Brake again.  Repeat ad nauseum.  Literally too.  Thus was blended the perfect recipe for concocting my first migraine.

My college roommate Helen, and I had driven to Los Angeles from Tucson, AZ for a spring break week of fun at some of the hot tourist spots and theme parks.  In 1979, banks gave away all kinds of gifts or special promotions.  It was through one local Tucson bank that we scored a great vacation deal at a very cheap price. 

On this particular day, we had just finished an awesome tour of Universal Studios.  I’d eaten a cheese dog for lunch and shortly afterward remember developing quite an evil headache that went beyond my normal.  Helen and I got on a big Grayline bus that would take us back to our hotel.  There weren’t a lot of people, so we sat separately, which turned out to be a really good thing.

It was the height of rush hour traffic.  Just easing out of Universal Studios and onto the freeway took a vast amount of time.  With each lurch forward and subsequent squeal of the bus’s brakes, my head pounded more exhuberantly and my stomach curdled.  All I wanted was to get back to the hotel and lay down.  But I was not to be rewarded in a timely manner.

I got to the point of becoming physically sick.  What do you do when you’re on a bus with no restroom, and you’re in the middle of crawling LA freeway traffic?  For me the choices were purse, blue nylon jogging jacket or floor.  Bye bye jogging jacket.  I don’t think anyone was aware of the deed I’d done, except maybe the keenly attuned bus driver who looked at me a couple times through his large rearview mirror.  I’m sure he thought I’d left him a surprise.

Instead, I committed my one and only act of flagrant littering.  The bus driver dropped us off a few blocks from the hotel.  I wasn’t about to carry the jacket all that way, so I crept part way up the freeway underpass where we had been let off and left the jacket in the mix of other trash.  Sorry Los Angeles.

Never was I more thankful to rest when we arrived back at the hotel.  A few hours later, I mustered enough will to go along with Helen to a nearby restaurant.  I didn’t want to ruin her fun, and the worst was over by then. 

I had no idea that what I experienced then was a migraine.  I had subsequent attacks in the next few years, and I always referred to them as “sick headaches”.  During my first pregnancy in 1985, the headaches amped up in frequency and duration.  I was diagnosed for the first time in 1986.  It was at that point when I realized I’d had my first migraine at 22 years of age on that brakes-on-brakes-off bus ride from hell. 

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the  National Headache Foundation

The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated  by  www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com

My New Addiction

All it took was the gentle push-off of my legs from the shallow end of the pool, and I was immediately buoyed in body and spirit.  Swimming again was like being back on a bicycle, only better.  I was transported back to the times when I was a kid who loved the water so much, I never wanted to come out.

I was nine before I learned how to swim. It was at a day camp for quite a lot of kids. Finding out that I was relegated a red bathing cap which symbolized non-swimmer, I was disappointed. The over-crowded shallow end wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Instead, my eyes were drawn to the left side of this huge Olympic size pool where there was a water slide. But red caps weren’t allowed in that deeper section of the water. Only blue caps or white caps need apply. As those colors signified intermediate and advanced levels respectively, I thought I had a long way to go.

There was small hope, however, in the form of an instructor. He stood before the group of at least fifty of us and simply demonstrated some arm movements. Though I’d been swimming underwater for several years, I couldn’t float or tread water and definitely couldn’t swim. But something clicked inside me that day. I put the arm movements in place with some kicks and I was actually afloat and moving!

Motivation quickly propelled me into earning a blue cap only a week later and eventually a coveted white cap toward the end of summer. Because I belonged to the Girl Scouts, I was able to take more swimming lessons at a nearby high school pool the following winter. It was there that I learned breathing techniques to allow me to use the American crawl form as well as the side stroke, breast stroke, and sort of the back stroke. To this day I cannot rotate my arms in the backward propeller motion for the backstroke. And despite an affinity for going underwater, I never mastered flipping over at the end of one lap to start another.

Instead I learned the joy of swimming and all its rewards such as diving off a board, swimming out to large lake rafts and body surfing at Jones Beach in Long Island, New York. Times and places for swimming became fewer when I moved to Oregon. And a certain “medical” issue kept me out of the water for too many days in the month, rendering it difficult if not impossible to become a member of any local pool.

After taking the plunge in mid April, I realized how much I’d been missing. In a span of one week, I went from twenty minutes of lap swimming to fifty minutes, and now I swim for an hour, four days a week. The swim styles have varied as it’s been hard to do the crawl more than a lap here or there.

Today was my breakthrough with the crawl though. I just swam and didn’t think about it. My breathing came naturally. I did ten laps in a row, then ten more later on. I felt as if I conquered some fear that I wouldn’t be able to swim like that because I was too old.

For me to have rekindled this passion for swimming is almost a miracle. Last year at this time, I was hardly mobile. I do suffer from intractible migraines, and small motions cause me to sweat ridiculously with my nose running like crazy. But this doesn’t happen when I swim! I feel productive for the first time in years.

If I can do this, anyone can. A diabetes scare along with high cholestrol and blood pressure was incentive enough to quit eating sugar and junk food. My bad hip led me to therapy and now reunited me with the pool. It’s never to late to change. Find your passion and engage in it. If you’re overweight, just losing a few pounds or a size or two can greatly boost your morale. Less pounds to carry means less pressure on bad joints. If you’re already slim but don’t move much, find something that will get you going. There are people in the pool who can barely walk, yet do exercises with noodle and floats and whose smiles tell the story.

After I swim, the good feeling continues for the rest of the day. And I never talk myself out of swimming. It’s just the opposite. I’m compelled to go. I hope you find something that compels you too. It’s been so much fun, and I look forward to swimming more “crawl” laps. New goals, new endurances, new me. Wishing you the same.

Remembering Maureen

Summer of ’79 had barely arrived,  and I was back in my home city of Little Neck, New York for what would be the last time.  We were at the start of my best fiend’s bachelorette party.  Back then women didn’t have male strippers, and the concept of bachelorette parties was still pretty new.  Donna’s festivities were dinner at a favorite Chinese restaurant and then NYC nightclubbing to follow.  There were about eight of us.

After we finished dinner, and as we walked down a sidestreet where our cars were parked, an argument developed.  Our friend Maureen was getting tired and wanted to forego the disco scene.  Donna was upset.  This was her big party, and she wanted everyone included.

It might have seemed odd that a twenty-two year old was about to bail out on a fun-filled night of drinking and dancing.  Maureen, however, had valid reason to be tired.  She was born with Cystic Fibrosis.  For all of her young life she’d battled this illness.  Now, the mucus in her lungs was becoming ever harder to eradicate.

Maureen was about 5′ 1″ tall, with long, straight blond hair and friendly brown eyes.  Her voice reminded me of the actress, Bernadette Peters’, and Maureen could sometimes laugh like Woody Woodpecker.  She was attending college to become a nurse, having been inspired by all the nurses who attended to her in her struggles with CF.

I don’t want to make Donna out to be extreme in this argument about Maureen wanting to go home.  I don’t remember the exact words given all the years gone by.  But they tore into Maureen’s sweet heart, and she burst into tears.  I immediately comforted her by enfolding her into my arms.

I cried too as I held Maureen.  I felt her hurt at being reprimanded for wanting to go home, but also, I was so stricken by how frail she felt as I hugged her.  I’m sure she couldn’t have weighed more than 95 pounds soaking wet.  I’d always known her CF had no cure, but when you’re young, you deny it.  Maureen was one of us.  She wouldn’t die. 

However, holding Maureen as I did, feeling her rib cage heaving with sobs, I knew resolutely for the first time that yes, she was going to die.  I didn’t want to let her go, but I did.  It was a sorry tiff between friends that had an extra hard bite in it because of Maureen’s illness.  I wish Donna had just given her a free pass to go home, but we were young and all selfish in our own ways.  I can understand on a certain level how imortant it was for Donna to have Maureen be part of her celebration. 

Because Maureen was always a trooper, she managed to garner enough strength to go with us to the discos.  Had I said we were all selfish to some degree?  Maureen, who had a right to be selfish, was not.  She put her fatigue behind her in order to make her dear friend’s night.

And she ended up making mine.  Because out of all the memories of my month in NYC that June, one stands out the most.  Maureen made the best of that night and didn’t complain.  She wasn’t able to do a lot of dancing.  However, Maureen was on the floor when I first heard Donna Summer’s new song – “Bad Girls” – I mostly remember the “toot toot, ah beep beep” part and the strobe lights, the disco ball, the whistles in the song, and the the flash of the light catching Maureen on that disco dance floor as she smiled exhuberantly and danced with all her heart.

About an hour ago I learned that  Donna Summer passed away from cancer at age 63.  My eyes welled with tears.  Her songs framed my last year, 1978, in my childhood home when I was suddenly twenty-one, parentless and had to grow up quickly.   I forever associate Donna Summer’s toot toot, ah, beep beep with the light in Maureen’s face and eyes as she danced like the kid she was.

Yesterday would have been Maureen’s 55th birthday. Sadly, she passed away in August of 1981, only two short years after I had felt her wilting away.  Maureen’s loving boyfriend had married her two months earlier, giving her the dream of her short lifetime.  It’s true that Maureen was lucky to have Russell to love her and committ to her despite the terminality of Maureen’s CF.  Yet I truly believe Russell was far luckier to have had this effervescent, beautiful sprite and light in his life. 

RIP Donna Summer and dear Maureen.  Toot, toot, ah, beep beep!

Six Months Later

In November of 2011, I was confronted with a realistic fear of becoming diabetic.  My new doctor called with the results of lab work that showed I was hovering above the threshold of that disease.  A few days earlier in her office, my blood pressure had been higher than normal as well.  My diet was terrible.  Therefore, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that my check-up and lab results were poor.

Now six months later, I am doing virtual cartwheels as I received my latest lab results, and the doctor’s sweet note that I’m no longer pre-diabetic.  The sacrifice of sugary treats has paid off.  Not only has the threat of diabetes been stopped in its tracks, but my cholestrol was normal as well.  I couldn’t be more thrilled.  I know that with positive changes, bad things can be reversed.

Does this mean I’m going to revert back to old habits?  Not a chance!  I know that eating poorly will easily bring the dangers back.  I want to continue on this healthier path.  It can only get better. 

As for my husband, I wish he would make changes too.  I have worried about him since before we were married.  A friend mentioned that she’d noticed he was getting heavier and maybe if I talked to him, he’d change that.  I look back now and though he was heavy then, he’s much, much heavier now.  It doesn’t do any good to talk to him about his weight.  He rarely mentions it.  The sad irony is that his weight is the proverbial “elephant in the room”.  But he has to want to change.  As Dr. Phil always says “you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge”.

Certainly, for a long time, that was true for me.  The lab results in November forced me to acknowledge the truth.  We really are what we eat.  I’m committed to keeping these better eating habits in place.  In another six months from now, I want to be trimmer and healthier. 

It’s nice to know that I’ve affected good changes and so have medications (for my still pesky hyperthyroid)  Onward I go, offering up a humble prayer that my dear, sweet husband will start to affect his own changes.  I’m pinning lots of hope on that.

Worry Wort

Oh yeah, the worrier in me lives, though I am trying to oust it from its cozy nesting spot.  The worry gene is embedded in my father’s side of the family.  He had a strong case of it, some of my cousins and aunts had it, and I too am blessed, err, I mean cursed with it as well.

My daughter and son have been official adults for awhile now and are going on two years living on their own.  Yet I still become anxious if I know they’re at a party.  A few days ago, my son, Tim, was at a gathering but left his car at our house to be picked up later that night.  After it was past twelve, and I didn’t hear his friend drop him off to get the car, anxiousness kicked me with a vengeance.  Afterall, Tim had to be at work the next day.  A continuous loop of thoughts swirled in my head as I couldn’t settle into sleep.  Where was he?  Was the friend drunk?  Would Tim be okay to drive home?  Was he coming home?  What if there had been an accident?  And on and on my mind raced with all the usual worst-case scenarios.  Finally, I heard the car pull into the driveway with the subsequent sound of car doors closing as Tim got into his vehicle and drove home.  I was too wound up to sleep for at least another hour.  Where had worry gotten me?  Absolutely nowhere.

Similarly, I worried about my daughter, Jana, over the weekend.  I had texted her to let her know she had received a package in the mail.  When she didn’t respond that day or the next, worry kicked in.  What if something happened to her and no one knew?  Was she upset about something and not answering for that reason?  I sent Jana another text asking her to please respond even if it were just a boo or a yah, which she did.  I didn’t realize that she was working swing shift the first night I texted her nor that night as well.  Again, worry had taken on its own miserable entity. 

Worry drains the spirit.  It takes away “living in the now”.  And I should do better by now because I’ve certainly known better for years (thank you, Maya Angelou)  When it comes to my kids especially, I need to let the worry evaporate.  Afterall, I didn’t have parents when I was their age.  I made it just fine, so I should trust that they’ll be able to navigate their world on their own terms.  I think Bob Marley sang it best – “Don’t worry, be happy.”  That should be my mantra.