My writing style

I used to love to write. I could crank out a 3 page paper in the 15 minutes before a class, handwritten,.no rough draft, no corrections, and get an A every time. Even through my English Comp courses in college, always A's, very few corrections even though now they were done on a computer. Even spell and grammar check rarely picked anything up. Some teachers let me get away with only a final draft, some didn't. Looking back, it was mostly because any energy I had to do homework went to the subjects I needed more time or energy for, since my migraines were fairly severe even then.
I haven't written much since school, emails for work, bullet point info for Powerpoint presentations, but for the most part I've stopped doing something I loved because any energy I had went elsewhere. I have a knack for numbers, so went into Marketing Analytics, by accident really, as I had initially applied for an accounting position. The gruelling hours of that position eventually led me back down the path to chronic vs episodic migraines.
I probably could have gone into journalism with my writing skills. May have been a better choice as writing is something I could maybe have done freelance on my good days.
I wanted to enter a chronic migraine writing contest a few months back. Rewrite Your Day - an essay about what day you had lost to migraine and what you had missed or would replace the day of pain with. In reality I would have needed to rewrite a day without migraine to have a day to write it. An online friend and chronic migraineur won one of the entry time frames of the contest.
In reality, I don't.know that I could have won. I now write what CMers call Migrainese. I talk in circles, transpose words, misspell frequently, and my punctuation.is awful. I rarely bother to fix it. The other CMers(chronic migrainuers) understand what I mean, and thats mostly who I communicate with these days.
So if my posts don't make sense, or have a million misspelled words, etc, please be kind and don't point it out. I miss writing well, but I'm slowly learning to accept my limitations, and if I only have 10 good minutes to write a post, I'm not going to spend half of it fixing my errors. Please understand I wish I could.crank out perfect writing like I used to, but I can't.  Maybe one day I will find a better med.combo,.and be able to write like I used to, work like I used to, spend time with my kids like I used to, really that part is number one, the kids. Just please go easy on my mistakes.

Back to Reality

I think I've been having a silent migraine the last day or so. I've been asleep the better part of the last 30 hours, minus a couple quick trips to the store since we were out of bread, milk, and my daughter needed a ride somewhere.
The pain hasn't been horrible, but I've been numb and weak, and horribly nauseous. We had some t-storms come thru this morning, had a big drop in temp today, and tomorrow is supposed to jump back up to outrageously hot. What's even better is after 2 days of that the temp is supposed to plummet about 30 degrees. All my favorite triggers rolled into one.
My husband wants to take the kids to the beach tomorrow....not so sure I will be participating, although I know that sucks for them. I think spending too much time in the extreme heat will do me in. I had a rough enough time at the softball tourney last weekend, and it wasn't even as bad as its supposed to be tomorrow. Thank goodness the tourney next weekend is supposed to be more on the low end of normal temps for this time of year, low 70's. And there are a couple of gazebo/pavillion areas where I can hide in the shade but still see the game.
I talk about moving to the desert, to avoid the weather changes, I'm fairly certain my issues with the heat are more the combo with the humidity...but who knows.
I would like to say once the kids are grown I will head for the desert, but the little one isn't even in kindergarten yet, so that is a long time to look forward to.
Hopefully whatever this is that has me dragging more than usual will break on its own soon, without an ER trip. Often when I'm stuck in silent migraine for days it ends in 3 days of my worst pain level, broken only by iv meds and fluids. (Probably exacerbates things that don't manage to eat or drink much when I'm.like this...yet another trigger.

Well back to bed I go...time to see if I can make it a straight 48 hrs I suppose.

The schedules are getting to me.

I have 4 kids, 2 of whom are in baseball and one in travel softball. I feel bad that I don't make it to nearly enough of my oldest sons games, guilt that is lessened a bit by the fact that I seem to be his bad luck charm. If I go to the game he is bound to make errors and strike out, if I go to the bathroom or concession stand while he is batting, solid double or triple every time. The scheduling is also usually overlapping with the other kids games. Thankfully my parents haven't missed but a couple of his games.
Right now my husband is helping coach my younger sons team, so if he and my daughter play at the same time, for one of us to be at each of their games, he gets his and I get hers. So I haven't been to many of wesleys games either.
Add in the mix that we also have a 3 yr old, so she is usually stuck coming with me, daddy can't coach and watch her, and as luck would have it, most of the fields trin plays on are on the opposite end of the complex from the playground, if there is one. I'm lucky to even see her bat.
Most nights we have to leave for something before 5, don't get home til around 8, end up having dinner then, and by that point I'm almost too wiped to cook. I'm embarrassed to say that due to this, right now we are just about out of clean dishes.

I do get a break in the morning when the little one is at preschool, but unfortunately, I am more likely to be catching up on sleep vs. cleaning the house. I don't know what I'm going to do come summer break,.except maybe start feeding them dinner at 3pm to avoid having to keep going.til 10pm.
I so miss the days when I had the energy to work 2 jobs, getting up at 8 to get the kids ready for daycare, waitressing one job from 10-5, picking up kids, getting them home, and bartending elsewhere til 3 or 4 am, depending how long it took to do my closing work. (This was not 7 days a week, I did still see the kids, but I still had energy on the days I was off.) I already suffered chronic migraines at this point, but nowhere near the severity they are now. I would give anything for half the energy I had then.
My younger son wants to try out for July all star travel. It will be almost 7 days a week for a month. I really want him to have the opportunity...I'm just not sure I can handle it.
I'm due to go to the rheumatologist again, there have been questions as to whther I have fibromyalgia on top of the migraines, if there is an underlying autoimmune, or some other mystery ailment. I'm hoping there is at least something they can do for the fatigue.
At least there are no tournaments this weekend. Only a game or two. I may spend all day Sunday and Monday in bed. How do you deal with fatigue on top of a schedule like this?

Time for a crazy weekend

Please please please let my head cooperate. My whole body for that matter. Things have been crazy with the kids sports and other extracurriculars since Tuesday, and that's not even counting my oldest son' s baseball, who had a game every day from Monday thru tomorrow.(Saturday) My parents attend his games, as he considers me a bad luck charm, if I'm at the game he strikes out and makes errors, when I'm not he hits triples and makes Sports Center quality plays.

Tuesday my younger son was home sick, but my husband coaches so he had to be at the game anyways. Wednesday my daughter had a softball game, she is on a travel team, buy thankfully it was a home game, so I was at that with my younger daughter who is 3. I am thankful every day that she is incredibly well behaved, besides being used to a minimum of 4 days a week at baseball, softball, or depending on the season, cheerleading and basketball, since she started on that schedule from birth. My younger son had another game, so my husband was with my son at that. Thankfully my older sons game finished about the same time, so my mom was able to bring them to the field I was at. My mom is usually my backup but with AJs schedule this week, things were tricky.
Thursday was a field trip for my younger son, so that meant a sack lunch needed to be made. Some of you may be shaking your head at why that is difficult, but I usually hit my highest pain level around 6am, and I had interrupted sleep to aggravate things. In the morning making breakfast, waking up the kids, and the extra work of the sack lunch is to me the equivalent of preparing a gourmet 4 course meal for anyone else. My husband started a new job, and I had to get him to a 530 am train, getting back up to get the kids up was agony. The weather has been up and down so I've been in bad shape.  Once school was out, we had to finish a big project for my younger son. Wesley has been having some stomach issues, lots of pain and vomiting, and lots of missed school. The project was late, his teacher was mad, and as soon as we were finished it was time to take Trin to softball again. She has to get there early for warm ups, thankfully my husband made dinner for the other kids while I dropped her off, since as soon as I got back, I had to run back out to take her catchers gear, she doesn't usually bring it as she hasn't caught since last fall. Then it was back to pick up the rest of the family to get there for the start of the game. Fortunately the 10/10 migraine I had most of the day had let up. I was happy I had made it out, since she went in to pitch in the 4 th inning, faced only 3 batters and had 2 strikouts and a ground out. The 5th and 6 th inning were also scoreless. She had a little rougher start in the 7th, and came out, but in all only gave up 1 run, but unfortunately the win went to the pitcher who came in after her.
Today was another special event day at Wed' school, so another sack lunch, another early morning ride to the train. Today I had to give in and have my mom drive him to school, thank God she only lives a couple blocks away. After he got home he needed to get ready for his travel baseball game. (He plays an in house league, but they have a sort of all star travel team for some of the kids before they hit the 11u level that does a full travel season) thanfully it was a home game, although he will have one that is nearly an hour away in a few weeks.
And this has been the easy part of the week. Tomorrow my oldest has away games, so I don't have my mom for backup. Trinity has a softball tournament, so a game at 9am, meaning she leaves the house by 730, her coach is picking her up for me, the coaches and other parents are very understanding of my health situation, one of the dads is actually a firefighter/paramedics and has taken me in by ambulance before for migraine and BP spike, so they get the seriousness of it. That game is immediately followed by one at 11. This is an away tourney, but only about 25 minutes, which is good since the husband and younger son have to be back at the field by our house at 1115 for his 12pm game. After that I will he picking them up for a possible 3pm tournament game for trinity, if they win their pool of 3 teams they don't play at 3, but we have faced those teams before, chances are great they will play at 3.
We don't know yet what her game schedule is for Sunday, but AJ(Oldest son)  thankfully has nothing, so is an.extra driver if I'm in bad shape, and since Wed has tryouts for a tournament travel team for July late Sunday afternoon.(my guess, same time as the softball game)
So please please please let me make it thru this weekend without seriously collapsing mid game.

Oh, and by the way I get to be pretty much in charge of the 3 yr old the entire time. Note to self: bring lots of money for concessions, I will need it to keep her occupied.

Thankfully Ryleigh, the 3 yr old started preschool recently, so provided the weekend doesn't kill me, I will be able to at least take a nap Monday morning.

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful to have my 4 kids. I just wish that they didn't have to be disappointed when I'm too sick to make all their games, or when all their games feels to me like running back to back to back marathons, while other parents actually feel like its a relaxing time.

Oh well, at least if I collapse there should be a paramedics there.

A little bit about me

Hi. I suffer from chronic migraine. The fact that I can even type this is a sign that today is one of my bad days vs. One of my normal, so painful its unbearable days. Please don't ever make the mistake of thinking I'm having a good day. I haven't had a good day since sometime in 2008, and even then those were incredibly rare.
What makes things even worse, is I am a wife and mother of 4. I was diagnosed at age 7, and I met the definition of chronic (15+ days a month) by high school. I used to suffer in what I call cycles, a few really bad months, where I had a migraine nearly every day, then a few months that were right at about 15 days, but the severity of each attack was more tolerable. My two older children, who are 17 and nearly 12, remember times when I had occasion glimpses of being pain free. My 2nd youngest may, but I really only had one good year, 2007, and he would have been 5. In 2008 I became pregnant with our 4th, and while the pregnancy didn't make things intolerable, the limit on treatments made things feel worse than they were. My youngest was born on New Years Day, 2009, and 8 days later I had to be readmitted due to postpartum preeclampsia. It turns out I have an autoimmune clotting disorder that aggravated things, and I have not had a single good day since.
I live my life at a 7/10 on the pain scale, but my pain scale is a little different from those who do not suffer chronic pain. I am willing to bet that most people consider unmedicated childbirth or a kidney stone to be a 10/10. In my pain scale, childbirth is a 4/10, maybe a 5/10. Unfortunately, when I have my worst days and hit 10/10, I am treated as a liar or drug seeker when I hit the point I have to go to the emergency room, and even then, my main reason for going is because I've spent 4 days in a row vomiting and am so dehydrated its dangerous. I've actually been forcibly removed by security at one ER, have my mom drive me to another, and find out my potassium was so low my heart could have gone into a fatal arrythmia.
I will post more about each of these topics in depth when I'm having another only bad day. Mostly I just want to let the rest of you who suffer as I do know that you aren't alone.
Kelly

Here goes....

Okay here is a little about me. I have been suffering from migraines of varying frequency and intensity for more than 25 years (since I was 7). Over the last 10 years I have had what I call flares, where I have a few months of severe migraines almost every single day, followed by a few months where they ease up a bit. Unfortunately the pattern always repeats.
All that changed January 2009. At the end of my pregnancy with my fourth child i developed pre-eclampsia. I was induced since it was only a few days before my due date. It appeared that my blood pressure had normalized and I was discharged two days later. The first day home my migraines were back and brutal. I attributed it to the change in hormones. When my daughter was 8 days old I was feeling particularly bad. I took my blood pressure and it was 179/119. I was told to go immediately to the ER. Once there they treated my migraine , my uncontrollable vomiting with nausea meds and my bp with iv bp medicine. The pain medicine and bp medicine should have both brought my bp down. Instead it climbed to 210/135. I was transfered to the hospital I delivered at and admitted. An mri showed white matter changes that the doctor was concerned could have been MS. (That has since been ruled out). My blood pressure has never normalized. I suffer daily moderate to severe migraines and now also suffer widespread pain. I now believe the increase in the migraines are a symptom rather than the diagnosis. I am hoping that posting here will help me work through the stress of this debilitating illness.

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