07/26/10: A case of the migraines

Well...last week sure blew up!  I started Sunday (of last week) completely wrong with the DirecTV guy showing up WAY TOO EARLY to do the install.  Sunday blew up to become exactly what it never ever ever should be.  A very stressful day.

I went to bed Sunday night with the start of a migraine but a prayer that my sleep would help me out.

Woke up Monday with a migraine really ready to take control but me still just in enough to keep it at arms length.  But by Monday night, my arms were buckling.

Tuesday it was on.  I wasn't fighting the migraine with sleep and exercise was out of the question.  My basic remedies were proving to be useless, so I called my PCP's office and scheduled an appt.  I have never been seen by my PCP for migraines.  I used to use the VA hospital and I still had drugs from them through most of this time I've been with my PCP.  But now...this time...I had nothing.  Luckily, they were able to get me in that afternoon.

Went to that appt and I was given "Midrin".  I believe that the Navy docs used to give me that and it used to work pretty well if taken quickly enough to get a foothold on the situation.

Went home, closed the drapes, closed the bathroom door (do you know how much light comes in our bedroom through that danged door?  It's CRAZY!), took a Midrin and crawled in bed.  And then ding dong.

The DirecTV guy is there to fix/finish the install that led to the crazy migraine in the first place.

If you'll remember from a post last week, my migraines come from a combo of stress, exhaustion, and whacky weather.  I can't control the weather but usually all three things don't happen all at once.  Well, sad as it is, my stress, the stress that put me over the edge, anyway, was DirecTV sending us the world's most incompetent technician.  And to be fair to DirecTV - it wasn't them that sent that horrid tech...it was the third party contractor.  But I can't imagine anything going more wrong with that install.  And to get it fixed, we were, or rather, "I" was on the phone with DirecTV for over an hour on Sunday, for an hour on Monday, and then another FOUR hours on Tuesday.  The tech that was sent Tues night was completely clue'd-in...but a fubar on the part of the third party contractor manager would have still had us not set up right.  By about hour number three I was ready to cancel the service and tell the tech to take all the equipment with him but DirecTV really came through in making me a fabulously happy customer.  And the picture is a gazillion times better than it ever was with Comcast.  1080p vs. 1080i makes a HUGE difference!  And when you've invested in a 65" plasma tv, picture COUNTS!

Well, by the time the poor tech (And I mean what I say...I was yelling and furious at multiple points in that evening, all, of course, aggravated by a now running-away-from-me migraine!) left, I was done.  I tried to double dose the Midrin...ok, that's a whacky statement...I didn't take two.  I took one...and two hours later tried another thinking it would knock me out faster and sleep could work it's wonders faster.

Well.  That partially worked.

Wednesday the migraine was a dull roar.  Not gone but not horrible, either.  So I'm up and about and proceeding through my day....

Nothing of note.

But Thursday.  MAN OH MAN!  I was SCREWED!

Thursday afternoon with the Midrin not doing a danged thing, I called my PCP back and asked for something else to be tried.  And I slept.

Friday my PCP finally called back.  They had called in a prescription for Maxalt.  I dragged myself out of my bed and out of my cave to go around the corner to the pharmacy to pick it up.  And I went home.  And I took my Maxalt.  And I closed my eyes.  And half an hour later I felt this odd tightness in my chest and my jaw.  And I felt fuzzy.  Like if you'd tried petting me I'd have been fuzzy.  And half an hour later those weird sensations were gone.  And so was the migraine!

About an hour later the migraine was telling me it wasn't giving up without a fight.  So, when my two hours was up, I took one more Maxalt as I was allowed to do.  And half an hour later, fuzzy tightness again.  And half an hour later I was officially back to being a bonafide human being!

I took it easy, slept some more, chilled out, did nothing to re-aggravate the migraine.  Saturday I was aware that if I took one wrong step, the migraine would be back.  My husband's birthday was on Sunday and a good part of his celebration was set for Saturday.  He wanted to see Toy Story 3 and our closest theater was offering it at a time we liked.  But when we got there, they said, it's in 3D...is that ok? 

Yeah...Not thinking 3D would be good for a migraine that's just begging to come back.  Add in the 3D ticket price and we said we'd move on.  We went to a theater half way to Galveston (we were going to Galveston for dinner) and ended up in a theater that charges $2.75 for the matinee price.  Did you know theaters with that ticket price still existed?  We didn't!  And this theater is a mere 15 miles from us.  Well worth the drive considering our closest theater is $7.50 for a matinee.

Toy Story 3 was a great movie!  And that's coming from somebody that doesn't usually like cartoons!!!

From there we went south some more to Galveston island.  I went by my old apartment from when I was in college and was surprised they haven't been knocked down yet.  They were nice apartments while I was there - it was on a marina and you could rent a boat slip with your apartment.  Right on the water with a little boardwalk that went along the waters edge.  I liked living there!  And my apartment was pretty nice, too.  I think.  For a college kid.  Hurricane Ike knocked out a few of the buildings, but not all.  But the whole property has been condemned unless someone will step up to buy it and fix it.  But these buildings have been sitting for almost 2 years now...with windows blown out and gaping holes in roofs...seems what might have once been fixable probably isn't now.  Sadness.  I always have to drive by, though, just to see if maybe something is happening now. 

We drove the Seawall and were very pleased/surprised/impressed to see the island was PACKED!  And then we wandered over to the Harbor side of the island and went to Willie G's for dinner.  One of our favorite mega-conglomerate type seafood restaurants.  The wait was over an hour and the bar was full so we went across the street to another restaurant to have a drink.  I ordered my martini, my birthday-boy ordered his margarita.  And then he says to the bartender, 'what's your name?' to which the bartender replies 'Ivan' and then bursts out 'Fred **********'.  The bartender and my husband were in band together high school back in the day.  My husband was a senior when Ivan was a freshman but they played the same instrument and so became friends because of that. So there was a bit of catching up and a 'guess what X is doing now'.  And then finally, Willie G's called.  Instead of giving us pagers or writing our name on a list, they ask for our cell # and call when the table was ready.  Gave us freedom to be wandering around...

So we had our fabulous dinner and actually wandered back across the street for desert and after dinner drinks.  Desert for me, fave of all faves is actually a cup of coffee so that's what I had.  My husband, on the other hand, birthday boy that he was, had a tres leches...in a Greek restaurant.  Too FUNNY!

Yesterday was as peaceful as last Sunday should have been!  I finally got to the dishes - and I'm not one for leaving dishes sitting.  My great grandmother had a belief that if you don't do the dishes right after dinner, then you won't, so to make it easy, just do the dishes after dinner.  And she's right.  If I do them RIGHT AFTER DINNER, they get done and the kitchen stays clean.  If the kitchen is clean, so is the house.  But if I let them sit...even for an hour...they may continue to sit through the night.  And if they sit one night...they are likely to sit for two.  My mom was never one to tell me to go clean the kitchen so that she could put her feet up, when I was a kid.  If she told me to go clean the kitchen...then she went to clean the kitchen, too.  So I actually have lots of warm memories of cleaning the kitchen with my mom after some wonderful home cooked meal (which was the norm).  My perfect day ends with the kitchen humming with the dishwasher running as a pot of water sits on the stove to boil for a cup of tea as I curl up to watch a tv show or read a book or magazine.  And my day can be disastrous but if I have that ending, I feel good!  Especially since now it feels like my mom is right there with me!

This is getting to be a long post.  Did you think I forgot how?

So the dishes were done, the laundry was finished, the sheets and towels were changed, my sweet birthday boy husband sat on the couch playing Guitar Hero all afternoon (my birthday present to him) and ultimately we joined one of our favorite neighbors for dinner at one of my husband's favorite restaurants.

As of yesterday, the migraine is finally beaten into submission for once and for all!  And while the weather is still whacky, the stress is dissipating and the exhaustion is a thing of the past!

I had started to make progress on catching up on the blogs but after four days of no reading, I'm back to not caught up again.  But...no work at work right now....so this week should see some progress!

I hope you all have a fantastic week.  I'm gonna try, that's for sure.  Weightlifting starts tonight and eating is getting back to impressively little!

Speaking of eating.  I ate 1750 calories on Saturday.  Lunch - chicken pot pie - really just picked chicken out and ate a fair share of the crust, which was only a topper.  Lunch wasn't bad...but the rest of the day...

Popcorn and a Twix at the movie.
Martini before dinner.  (Dang there's a lot of calories in a martini - but they're so GOOD!)
Wedge salad and lobster bisque split with my husband.  YUM stuff!
Salmon fillet and parmesan risotto with grilled artichoke for dinner.  Ate all the risotto and artichoke and about half the salmon.  Screwed up priorities, eh?
Coffee for desert

1750 calories. 

From Saturday morning to Sunday morning I gained 3 pounds!  Woohoo!  I had fun celebrating with my husband!!  I FELT SO INCREDIBLY STUFFED, THOUGH!  Like I'd eaten Thanksgiving.  Painfully stuffed.

Yesterday, the scale continued to drop all day.  By last night at bedtime, I was back to Saturday morning's weight.  Which puts me at a new low.

I still feel like I'm a bit too restricted.  But I'm also learning that I'm part of the problem, too.  Give me long enough and I'll catch on.  :)  I eat too fast.  And it's like...I'm gonna eat like I'm "normal" until the pain kicks in.  However much I can get in...that's how much I WANT to eat.  Once the pain kicks in, I gotta watch my food get cold...so literally, I want to get in as much as I can while it's still warm and yummy-ness.  Then I deal with the pain.

I'm learning, though, that if I eat a bite...put the fork down....let it go down...I feel it.  It goes down...it's not painful, although it's not pleasant.  Big burp...ready for the next bite.  Eat a bite...put the fork down...let it go down...I feel it.  It goes down...same way...finished with a BIGGER burp.  Do it again.  Even bigger burp.  But after ten minutes of this, when the food is now getting cold...well...golly...I'm FULL!  I'm even satisfied.

If I do the way I have been doing - which, ironically, developed on our trip to Vegas, I'm hungry again within an hour or two.

If I do it the new way, even with less food ingested, I'm not hungry for 3-4, sometimes even 5 hours.

I was doing pretty well before Vegas and for some reason, I threw out what was working in Vegas.  Wasn't eating at buffets...but I guess maybe I wanted my money's worth or something?  Or I didn't want to hold my husband up since I take a lot longer to eat quite a lot less.  So I was cramming it in.  But when we got home, I kept doing that.

And while...yeah...goofy stupid me...I'm also glad I'm doing this, have been doing this, and am working through this.  It, for example, led to an interesting conversation with my husband over breakfast yesterday morning.  He wanted to go to IHOP for breakfast on his birthday so we did.  And I ordered their machaca.  Shredded beef and slices of onion and bell pepper all sauted together then scrambled with eggs.  You make burritos out of that and it's so yum.  I grew up on the stuff in Mexico and even in California and it's impossible to find in Texas.  I've taken to making my own...but getting the shredded beef to be what it's supposed to be is a day long process.  So I ordered machaca.  I used to eat 1 or 2 tortillas filled with this.  Yesterday I barely ate half of one.  But I made/let myself take it easy and BE SLOW.  And while I still got stuck...it wasn't the same painful experience as if I'd just crammed it all down.  And stuck for me works out.  It all goes down....just v.....e........r........y  slowly.  But the more bites that are crammed in, waiting to go down...the worse it feels.  If it's just one bite working through...it's ok.  But that's the difference of banded vs. not.  Before band - 2 tortillas, if not 3 (if it was dinner time).  Now.  HALF of ONE!

So here we are at breakfast.  And I'm eating what I want, albeit very slowly and with special consideration.  And I tell my husband, finally, what's been on my mind for a week or so now, that I think I am the problem.  I think the band is too tight...but I'm not crying mercy because I think I might be aggravating the situation.  And he says interesting.  He didn't think that was the case so it was interesting to him to hear what I thought was happening, what I was doing.  And he thought it made sense.  And he agreed, whatever changed, changed in Vegas.  And the change was mostly in ME.

Well.  His weightloss has slowed, too.  Maybe even backtracking.  I don't know.  I know that the scale isn't moving and he's frustrated.  But he's eating my plate when I'm done.  So it's working out to two meals for him and half a meal for me.  Cause even with all the cramming I was doing, I was still eating A LOT less.  The difference between the cramming and what I'm doing now is the grazing.  Cramming was leading to grazing, and being very slow and easy about it, now, has led to A LOT less intake.  Enough so that I am now worried about protein.

Anywho.  So he's finishing my plates.

So we made a pact yesterday morning that from now on...we will order together when we eat out.  We really need to just stop eating out!  But if we do eat out, we will order one plate and split it.

1750 calories on Saturday.  I didn't even think I was capable of that anymore.  Turns out I am...but it DOES NOT feel good.

I have to chuckle.  1750 calories.  That's a lot?  I was groomed to be shooting for 2000 calories a day.  My GoBe tells me I still had a deficit of 800 calories for the day after all the walking and moving around that I did on Saturday.  So 1750 was nothing to worry about.  What a change, though...to be thinking, and feeling, that 1750 calories is entirely too many!

All right.  I'm done.  Have a great day y'all.  If you need me...I'll be reading....