I’ve had this Formspring account for a while now, questions occasionally trickling in. Today is Sunday, though, and since I have enough work to keep ten people busy, I don’t have time to craft a real post. So instead, I’m going to let you ask me questions — anonymously or with a name attached, I don’t care — that I will answer later when all of my work is complete.
Thanks!
The headache started at about 7. It felt like just another, “Hey, asshole, you need to eat something” warning. So I ignored it for a little longer, working on my client’s blog design until I finally gave in and ate. It didn’t go away.
When I picked Mike up from work at about 9:20, the headache continue to hang around. Robbie invited us over to Jaysa’s for a bit, so we decided to head over after going to Mike’s so that he could change out of his work clothes. I figured the headache would hit the road once I’d had a couple of drinks, as we were going to play a little beer pong. As soon as I walked in the door and saw my niece Ciana, though, I lost all interest in beer. I know, I know; there must be something wrong with me! But no, it’s just the part of me that absolutely adores kids and is completely addicted to very cute newborns. So while Mike played a couple games of beer pong and the rest of the gang finished off the few remaining bottles of beer, I snuggled with Ciana, talking to her about this and that, and then fed her while her mommy and daddy got to have some fun.
The headache moved into the background, and I figured it would finally fade.
After the last drop of beer was gone, the four of us — Mike, Robbie, Jaysa, and I — sat around the kitchen table and chatted while Ciana slept in her infant carseat.
The night wore on, and soon Mike decided that he wanted to go home. He also decided that he wanted a Big Mac, so we stopped at McDonald’s. As we sat in the drive-thru, my blood sugar dropped and I felt pretty crummy, so I decided I’d get some fries and a McDouble (which is the double cheeseburger). I drove back to his house carefully, very aware of the snow, the slickness of the road, and my dangerously low blood sugar. (Ever since I was a little Elizabeth, I’ve been hypoglycemic, which basically means that my metabolism is really fast and keeps me skinny, but also absorbs sugar very quickly and leaves me really sick if I don’t eat every few hours AND eat foods high in protein.)
By the time I got to Mike’s, my head was pounding, my stomach was queasy, and I pretty much sat on the floor of the kitchen while he ate, occasionally nibbling on a fry or two when the headache and nausea ebbed momentarily. It would come back quickly, and all I could do was sit on the floor with my head between my knees, my hands pressing hard on the top of my head where the headache seared, making it feel like my brain was swelling against my skull.
I could barely eat, I felt so horrible.
I forced myself to eat a little more, if only to raise my blood sugar. Then, suddenly, the headache turned into a monster migraine. Pain would flare across my brow, through my eyes, looping in a nightmare. It would cease for a second, then it would go back around the front of my head. When it paused, the headache would go back to the back and top of my head. I knew I needed to go home so I could make some soup, take a Tramadol, and take my Seroquel, but I could barely move, it hurt so bad.
I’ve never had a headache like it.
When the searing pain in the front of my head stopped, I put my boots and coat on, grabbed the rest of my fries, and got into the car, hoping that I would make it home before it came back.
By the time I got home, I felt too exhausted to make the soup. I took 50mg of Tramadol, hoping that it would kick the migraine’s ass and let me sleep, as well as the 400mg of Seroquel (Pam bumped me up to 400 to see if it would make an even bigger difference from the 300 I was taking). I put my cold eye mask on, put my regular sleeping eye mask over it, and lay flat on my back as the headache sat in front of my head.
My plan was to get up at noon and work on my client’s site so that I could have everything done and go out bowling with Mike and his coworkers.
I woke up fifteen hours later.
Dazed, groggy, and annoyed that I’d woken up so late, I stumbled around trying to clear my head enough to do at least SOME work. I figured I could cram it all into a few hours and still be able to go bowling.
WRONG.
Pam had warned me that going up to 400mg would make me drowsy. Normally, Tramadol gives me a high and allows me to sleep really, really well if I take it before bed. Apparently, combining the two is a recipe for a fifteen-hour coma (but it did make my headache go away, so I guess we’re even). Gone were my plans of going to my aunt’s to work with her for a few hours and then coming home for a shower before going out to the bowling alley.
It’s kind of a good thing, though; Mike and I do a lot of stuff together, so it’s nice to see him go out and have fun without me. I do feel a little left out, but it’s my own damn fault.
I’m not sure what the lesson is here. Both medications are okay to take together — I made sure to ask Pam about it. I think what happened was, I took both too late (at about four in the morning), and should have just gone to bed with nothing instead. Had I known that we did have some Aleve in the house, I would have just taken that.
I just know that that headache was NOT a normal headache. It was awful, beyond any words. I’ve only had one migraine before it and that wasn’t even close to how bad last night’s headache was.
I still feel it, faintly there, as if it’s just waiting to come back and torture me more. It could be worse, though:
You’re welcome.
I’m taking a moment, here, to unwind. To breathe. Man, do I need to breathe.
As much as I love my profession, sometimes the workload is daunting. I know that I shouldn’t complain, that I should be grateful and I should JUST DO IT. There is a little voice inside of me, though, that whispers.
You’re not cut out for this.
Then: You’re not a business person.
I am good at what I do. I know that. It isn’t an egotistical knowledge; I’m pretty hard on myself. To quote a show that I really miss now, “I try to be my best.” But I worry. I worry that my best is not good enough.
It would be one thing if I failed and only let myself down. But there are others depending on me. That knowledge leans heavily on me. The little voice gains volume.
You’re not cut out for this.
I tell it to shush, that I am doing my best.
But I wonder: Is my best enough?
I need to keep plowing through. It will all be worth it in the end, I tell myself. So cliche, but I hang on to it, because it HAS to be worth it in the end. Otherwise, what else is left?
All of the cigarettes, all of the chocolate, all of the coffee in the world can’t make the weight on me any easier to bear. Is it too much weight? I don’t know. I tell myself that I can handle it. I tell myself to just suck it up, to JUST DO IT. Just fucking do it.
I have to try to keep the what ifs at bay, keep the little/big voice smushed down.
I have to try.
To be my best.
Like I said on Twitter, no one in my household appreciates my ability to do the cat in the Cadbury commercial:
But I know that you appreciate me, and my advanced set of skills. So I did this for you, the people, who get me:
You’re welcome.
For the last — wait, let me think — four? days, I have had that song by Lady Gaga stuck in my head. You know the one. I shouldn’t have to name it or sing it for you. Oh, you want it stuck in your head, too?
There, now we are both suffering.
Except, here is the problem: After days of it being stuck in my head, days of me complaining vehemently, it’s just there now. (Actually, I even just watched the video above without twitching or wanting to hurl myself out of a window.)
This is how I work. What do I mean? Let’s look at an example.
When I first heard Coheed and Cambria’s “A Favor House Atlantic,” I hated it. Then it got stuck in my head. Then I was forced to listen to a whole bunch of their music. And then, suddenly, I fell in love.
I was forced to listen to lots of Gaga the other day, while Mike shopped at — eew1 — Hot Topic for tee shirts. Then that “Bad Romance” song got permanently branded into the very cells of my brain.
As Mike and I breezed through a Target in another town last night — it was amazing, I tell you, AMAZING!2 — I told him I was doomed.
“I’m going to end up liking her,” I said.
“Well, you did say — and I mean, you’re probably going to deny it now — but you did say, a few months ago, that you respected her. Because she writes all of her own lyrics and music and stuff.” He may have sounded a little smug.
“I did. I did research and read about how she worked her way up, how she writes all of her own lyrics, all of that. And I still do respect her. She actually earned where she is, as opposed to some of these other so-called singers.”
We turned off of the racetrack and into an aisle. “There ya go,” he said.
“Stop! It’s like you want me to like her.”
And, as I sit here typing this, that song is getting even less annoying.
1A story for another day.
2I looooove Target.
