be nice to my body

I fell down the stairs and landed royally on my bum, it really hurts! This, three weeks after a knee operation, sitting and standing have never been so painful, oh well.

tomorrow. Today I am celebrating by walking, standing, jumping, skipping and hopping. Thinking about taking myself to my secret tea room today to eat a cream cake. In other news, I love a tidy house.

one thing fixes and another thing falls apart. Just when I thought the migraines had gone something else drops off. In this case it’s a bit of a strange menstrual cycle, no I’m not pregnant! It’s probably hormones or getting older. Apparently things slow down and fall off in your thirties. I have operation number two soon to have Horace, my friendly but slightly annoying extra bone taken out. I have dreams of running for buses and kneeling to tie shoelaces to work towards… come on Horace, get a move on!

I have spent the last two days in bed… it’s been great, well apart from the brain freezing migraine. I should probably read or get on with making work for an exhibition I’m in next week, but nahh, I’m gonna go right back to bed cos sometimes you just have to give in and do nothing.

Firstly I have a migraine. This isn’t a big deal as for the last six months or so I get a migraine pretty much every day. Some days they are mammoth somedays they are teeny, so small that I ignore it and it goes away soon enough. Ultimately though they are always there, like the imaginary friend I never invented when I was a child.

So for the last three or four months I’ve come to accept this little fact within my daily routine and where I used to get really wound up about it, I now just let it become part of me. The problem here is that for the past month I’ve been getting increasingly depressed. I know this is a symptom for the longer term sufferer which I suppose I am now. What I really want to do is eradicate this symptom. The tiredness and pain I can handle. I can sleep and take painkillers, but the depression is really getting to me. I’ve lost my get up and go, my enthusiasm and motivation and frankly I would like it back please.

I went for a walk today because I was having one of those blah days and I just sat in the park and felt pretty numb. Then I thought I’ll have a walk, wind blowing through my hair, maybe I’m a horse as wild as the hills in a fictional medieval country? Except I’m not a horse, I’m a girl with a dud knee which locked a few days ago and is still very sore today so that cancelled that plan out.

I’m going to try my best not to let it affect me. It’s not clinical depression, I have had that only once in my life and it was a truly horrid experience. I know this is different and that there is room for the good thoughts to override the bad, but everyday seems to be a bigger hurdle to overcome. I’m hoping once I’m back at work with my routine things will get better. Creativity always keeps me right, but lately I haven’t even wanted to do that. I am going to try and force myself to do stuff. I’ve been getting back into writing but the very thought of making books just depresses me even further. I think the thing to do is to find a new obsession, I’m good with obsessions.

I am so sick sick sick of these migraines, they’ve come back as aggressive as ever I could cry cry cry, that’s actually probably not a bad idea, it would probably relieve some stress. I wrote in my journal last night that I wanted to swallow all my pills just because then I could have some pain relief but I know that’s a really stupid idea, though I did swallow 4 in one go and my daily limit is 3 pills.

I think I have definitely discovered that rather than food being any trigger it is most definitely stress triggered because it’s come on much stronger since I’ve been thinking about my exhibition deadline and I’m putting on a very large event in a few weeks and a band cancelled on us at the last minute… when we had already gone to print with a beer mat company so that definitely has contributed. On top of that I keep finding things falling apart in my house and have to run backwards and forwards with various plumbers and workmen to make sure everyone is happy.

I’ve spent most of this weekend asleep, I hope I can get everything finished for my show. After it I have a market and then I’m going to take a week off so I’ve made a list of things that relax me and on my week off I’m going to do everything on it:

Have a bath
Listen to Tunng
Have a sleep
Go to the Sauna
Go for a walk somewhere green
Have a massage
Do Pilates (better leave this until my knee is better)
Eat chocolate
Laugh out loud with friends
Hug
Write a silly ditty
Read
Light candles
Have a gallery day
Eat a slice of cake
write a letter

but my head and my doctor tell me I am and of all the things you should listen to, it’s your head. Your doctor is less of a sure thing, it depends if you like them or if you believe scientific research headlines in the local news, lets say for arguments sake I should listen to my doctor. He has an irish accent and big round thinking eyes after all.

One thing is certain though my headache is most definitely not going away, it’s been more than forty days and living in denial about being stressed is not helping, so I’m going to go with (for arguments sake) that I am stressed and that I need to employ stress busting devices to make me better.

First up is some alternative therapies. I’ve been reccommended some hard tissue treatment, I think this is like a very intense massage. It’s not cheap, but a relatively small price to pay for being pain free. Ahh pain free I literally don’t remember what that’s like.

Also my evenings are going to be relaxing times (at least for the next week)I usually do some sort of art work, but I’m going to have to cut back on that for a bit. I’m so shattered when I come home, any work I do won’t be of my usual standard anyway.

Sundays will be my watch a DVD in bed and cuddle my cat day.

There that should do it for now. I’m off for what I hope will be a nice short meeting then home for a lavendar bath. Super!

all my symptoms are now pointing towards cluster headaches which I thought were a form of migraine but apparently they’re not, although they are similar. I’d never seen a doctor baffled but when I went back to see him he didn’t answer my questions for whole minutes and ummed and ahhed as he looked at stuff on the doctor internet. Then after he had given me a mammoth supply of uber strong painkillers and kept telling me not to drink on them because that can trigger a migriane/clusterache I thought it might be okay to have a sneaky half pint and well that was the worst thing I could ever do because I woke up with the stinkiest head pain and had to take three of the damn painkillers to even take the edge off, not altogether that would be silly. I took one first which didn’t work then two a few hours later. They made my trip to the shop much more enjoyable than usual.

I also discovered that migraines/clusteraches shut down your stomach and find it harder to digest stuff which is why normal painkillers can’t get into your system, the painkiller I’m taking also does a thing that I can’t remember exactly which relieves the nausea meaning I can now digest them hurrah! I’ve been off food lately which is really annoying cos food is ACE! It’s quite funny I don’t really remember what it’s like not to have a headache and I know it should be getting me down but I’m okay with it. The only thing I’m annoyed at is not having much energy and I’m starting a new job next week and have some freelance deadlines so energy is much needed at the moment. I may have this pain for another 60 days which would be rotten. On the up side I’ve bought fancy new bed linen so it just means I can enjoy them much more than normal.

Oh dear I think I must be stressed or something because my migraine has come back just as bad as it was when I first got it. Today is day 22 and I’m utterly shattered all of the time. Last night I was too tired even to watch the telly I just went straight to bed and today some stupid idiot is taking photographs outside my window and the flash is really hurting my head. Even my new painkillers aren’t working properly. I’ve started a migraine diary of all the food I eat and how bad the pain is, today it’s pretty bad and I’ve only had a sandwich and I’m getting dizzy again which I only usually get before a migraine kicks in. All I can think about is going home and sleeping forever but that’s still two hours away which in itself feels like forever.

The thing is I don’t feel stressed out, I feel perfectly happy. Sure I’ve had to pack up my entire life to move house and work has been really busy but other than that I am feeling quite happy. I had a bit of an off day last week where I basically cried at a nurse and a receptionist because no one would help me with my migraine but this is possibly more down to wanting some killer drugs than anything else. I’ve also completely cut down on chocolate, fried food and cheese which are migraine triggers so I’m completely baffled as to why it’s still here. I suppose I should go back to the doctors again, I’ll wait a few more days and give my painkillers a chance to kick in and then go back.

I don’t know what it is but my migraines are steadily getting worse and worse each time I get an attack, which thank god isn’t too often, my last one was in February and the one before that was two years previously but they seem to last for ages. The last one lasted nearly 3 weeks and this one is nearly at a week. The internet tells me that regular migraines last about 72 hours, the internet lies!! Unless I have the bad migraine which can last 6 weeks but I don’t think I have because I haven’t got the Aura symptoms that come with it. Anyway I just thought I’d have a little rant because I’ve spent the day in bed in a darkened room that is too damn light even with the curtains drawn.

I might try the really strong painkillers the doctor prescribed the last time I had one which I’m afraid of taking, if that doesn’t work I’m going to demand a brain exchange… any takers?