Wednesday, August 10, 2016

A Trying to Get Back to Normal Hodge-Podge

Last week, I had a full migraine for the first time in years. I think the last time I had a migraine with all of the symptoms was in graduate school, which was more than 15 years ago. I think it was early in graduate school, so honestly, it has probably been close to 20 years since I had a full migraine. A couple of years ago, I had a cluster of visual migraines, but those didn't come with the headache and didn't last long.

So, I had no idea what to expect, and when I found that a combination of ibuprofen and caffeine made it possible for me to function after the first day, I took ibuprofen and increased my usual caffeine intake. I got through Thursday and Friday, not feeling great, but functioning. I got through Saturday and Sunday, still not feeling great, but thinking I was basically better because the headache was mostly gone. I went off to my main client site on Monday thinking I was back to normal.

Boy, was I wrong. I felt like I was in a fog. I couldn't really think straight and I was exhausted. A little Google searching told me I was likely experiencing a postdromal phase to my migraine. So I cut my day short and came home. And I took a 2.5 hour nap. I got up and made dinner (Monday is swimming night, so Mr. Snarky was with the kids at the pool) and then I collapsed on the sofa until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed, and went to bed early.

I felt better Tuesday, but not quite 100%. I got through my work day and dinner... and hit a wall around the kids' bedtime.

Today I'm better still, but not back to normal. And I'm left wondering if I would have gotten better faster if I'd allowed myself more rest time in the early phases. I hope I don't get a chance to find out, because that would mean another migraine. But still, this is yet another reminder that I need to learn to allow myself to rest when I'm feeling a little under the weather but am not completely incapacitated. I really do.

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Pumpkin was excited to watch the women's gymnastics at the Olympics, but the NBC coverage has made that next to impossible. Luckily for her, she's going to visit my parents next week, and they have recorded some gymnastics for her to watch. But I'm really frustrated with NBC. The have made it so that the only way to have even a decent Olympic-watching experience is to have cable, so that you can access the event replays on streaming. We don't have cable, but we added NBC to our Sling channels thinking we could catch enough on broadcast. But no, they've tape delayed all the "big" events such that the majority of them are well past my kids' bedtime. Heck, a lot of it is past MY bedtime.

This is frustrating because I know that it is possible to provide a better experience. We bought access to the Rugby World Cup that allowed us to watch all of the games on demand, whenever we wanted. NBC could easily have done something similar with the Olympics, perhaps providing different streaming packages with different groups of events. Instead, it feels like they're trying to bully us all back to cable. That isn't going to work. Nothing NBC can do will make us go back to cable. Cable is just not a good fit for us anymore. They would be better served to recognize that the way people access entertainment is changing, and work to figure out how to adapt their business model to the new reality.

Oh well.

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Speaking of annoying things... why do stores insist on acting like the seasons are the same here in Southern California as they are on the East Coast? We want a patio umbrella to tide us over until we can figure out what to do with our patio (the old pergola went down with the remodel, and now we have a larger patio). We were finally going to buy one last weekend, but apparently it is now time for autumn things at Home Depot and they've taken all their umbrellas away.

This is silly. September and October are two of the nicest, sunniest months here. (May and June are called May Grey and June Gloom....) We can sit outside on our patio almost year round, really. We should be able to buy a patio umbrella in August.

Of course, we CAN buy a patio umbrella in August. We ordered one from Amazon. It should be here tomorrow.

There's a lesson there for Home Depot, too, I think, along similar lines to the lesson I wish NBC would learn. The world has changed. Best change with it.

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I think I hit the "I should really go rest" wall about an hour ago. So I'm going to go rest. I'm still working on the "listen to my body when it says I should rest" thing, I guess.

8 comments:

  1. Not sure why my first instinct was to say "welcome back" when it's really just that you were knocked down by a migraine. I have the same problem of failing to rest up enough early enough to head off a serious episode, and I think it's a mental block for me where I have to keep pushing through until I CANNOT but then I've really messed myself over. Same for you?

    I've often wondered why we have the same sales seasons as other parts of the countries when we don't have the same weather seasons. Makes it great for picking things up very cheaply at odd times I guess? That's how I got my swimwear deeply discounted last year though. SF doesn't get summer weather until Sept normally, and that meant buying in July or August was just about perfect.

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    1. Yeah, I think I have this idea that I shouldn't rest and "be a bother" for other people unless I just cannot keep going. This is a bad idea when the problem is a cold turning into something worse due to asthma and it is a bad idea with the migraine... I was so grumpy with everyone Tuesday night! But I have a weird mental block. I need to work on that.

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  2. Anonymous4:43 AM

    Oddly, we have been in the situation where we have need completely unable to find a winter coat in stores before visiting the grandparents.

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    1. We have that problem when we're preparing to go to NZ, but at least that makes sense! We've bought Petunia a new coat in NZ on both recent trips.

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  3. I'm sorry, migraines suck. I think you are right that resting earlier may have made the recovery easier, but even if not, its a good idea to be kind to yourself when you are ill (easier said than done, something I need to practice as well as I preach)
    The seasonal offerings in stores is so annoying to me. Try losing your gloves in January and see what you can find. Nothing but bathing suits and beachwear. I know I should be thinking ahead better, but who wants to think about winter gear in September?
    I had great intentions of "watching the Olympics" but we are in the same boat, with no cable, and things are coming on way too late for the kids to watch. I don't remember it being like that when I was a kid, I remember watching during the early evenings/daytime and catching all the high impact stuff like gymnastics/swimming/diving.

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    1. Yeah, I remember watching lots and lots of Olympics when I was a kid. I don't know if I was just in a better time zone, or if they've really shifted the coverage to be useless for kids.

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  4. I have some of the same question about store inventory. Halfway through the summer, I decided that I really needed another swimsuit. But Costco was no longer stocking them. In July. I guess next spring I'll have to buy one more than I think I need.

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    1. Because of my size and need for a suit with bra sizing, I can't buy suits in the stores ever. Even living in a beach town. But that is an entirely different rant....

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