6 days 4 migraines

Or maybe it was one migraine that kept coming back. I took naratriptan for the first two, and then took another for the third even though that is against my personal policy. It has been very hot (108º) and I was trying to make a decision about getting a dog from the Humane Society, and I needed to be able to leave my house and cope.

And then I woke up with the fourth headache, but I just couldn’t take a fourth triptan in less than a week, and it was still hot and the dog decision was still pending and then family came to visit. We ended up deciding against the dog (very sad, he is a very nice dog and 7 years old and I hope a nice family finds him. I wish I could retire right now and have lots of dogs and work in my yard and paint my kitchen and go for walks and bike rides every day. . .and when I had a migraine I would just lie down until it went away and then I’d get up and resume life. I’m so tired of having to fight my way through every single migraine.)

I detect migraine residue in my whininess. Anyway, it’s nice to have family, because you can sit in a restaurant gripping the side of your head and everybody just acts like it’s normal behavior on your part, since it is.

I was chosen for jury duty. They did close a library branch because of it.

My smooth, orderly, migraine-avoiding life has been severely disrupted in the last six weeks. My work schedule changed, I drive even more than before, there were graduations, going-aways, parties, jury duty. I got hives, but I’d never had them before and they were on my back and I couldn’t see them, and between my schedule and everything that was happening and my apparent inability to sufficiently describe what my problem was to the doctor’s office over the phone, I didn’t get treatment until nearly two weeks after they began and by then I guess hives just decide they like where they’re living even if what originally caused them is gone.

I especially had no idea that hives hurt!

So I have been eating a lot of aspirin. But the weather is still beautiful, which is unusual for this time of year. And this jury experience (my third) was the best ever. All the jurors took their job seriously, which was not true of the other juries I’ve been on. Restored my faith in the justice system, somewhat. Interestingly, the judge and both attorneys were women. Maybe that wouldn’t even elicit comment from younger people, but for me and the other female jurors my age, it was high-five time. The male jurors of more advanced age stoically endured. How their world has changed.

Kind of discouraged

Unseasonably rainy weather is making my yard look pleasant. Soon it will be 110º and I will come home from work one evening too tired to water and cracklephhht!. . .that’s the sound of all the non-native plants drying up and dying in 24 hours.

I have had a cold all week and feel worse today than ever, probably because I had to keep going to work since budget cutbacks make taking a sick day very difficult. Monday I have jury duty. Monday is my regular day off, but if I get picked for a trial that lasts more than a day, will they actually close my little one-person branch, like they keep threatening? I doubt it. I think that is just a threat to discourage me from trying to take time off. (The other, larger library I work at the other four days is now down to two staff, so it’s not so easy to take time off there, either. Or even lunch!) They will find a way to send someone to the little library as a sub.

It seems like I have had a lot of headaches lately, migraine and non-migraine. The stress of trying to keep that little library alive when it’s only open one day a week is taking a toll on me. Attendance and check-outs have plummeted, and I very irrationally feel like I have failed personally. And did I mention I have a headache? It makes everything harder to deal with.

Pomegranate blossoms

I haven’t been too happy with the weather this spring, but apparently it’s been good pomegranate weather! This tree is in my front yard. I don’t like pomegranates, but my family and all the neighborhood kids do.

Hoping for a quiet day

I have four days off in a row! And I was hoping that it would be one of those lovely migraine-free vacations, but no. I woke up knowing I would have a migraine even though I couldn’t feel any pain yet. And then I waited too long before taking a pill.

One way I knew it was coming was that my husband left the water running on a young apricot tree last night, and when I woke up I became aware of the sound of the water in the pipes. I don’t really understand how, but when the water is running outside, I hear it inside the house, but I don’t really notice it unless I have a migraine, and then it is INTOLERABLE.