Wow, I am starting to be able to add pictures yippee!! I’m very proud of myself…lol. So this picture may not really adhere to the post I am about to upload but it is very nice to look at and it was a butterfly myself and my daughter were watching one time at a park near our home. It was a very calming moment where we just sat and relaxed and watched the flight of the butterfly. I thought it might be nice to add to the beginning of the post…lets hope it works.
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The nauseated sickness took over my whole day. It would take 15 minutes or more to unload the dishwasher I would have to sit down to settle my stomach and keep my head from pounding a couple of times before finishing. Then came the next mundane task of folding laundry… a basket of laundry became my enemy. Trying to fold clothing, towels, blankets might take a few tries before I could complete the task and never in one sitting. I had to find something to calm the carsick feeling. Then one day I saw an ad on TV for Natural Gravol with Ginger and Willow Bark. My prayers were answered. I would buy every box on the shelf if it worked, lol. So here was the introduction of Ginger/Willow Bark Gravol 1 – 3 times a day. I could breath again without wanting to urge.
Throughout the years of 35-40, I spent many visits with my doctor trying to find answers. Explaining that I knew taking pain medications can bring on headaches, but there was something more then that and can we please investigate more. So my first CT scan was scheduled. Luckily enough there were no tumors, but that didn’t mean I was out of the woods. Unfortunately with the history of accumulating headaches and sickness we deduced that the headaches were Vascular/Vestibular Migraines, causing immense pain and off balanced episodes and they would only grow worse with no cure. I would more then likely plateau at a certain level of pain medication and when I would feel like they were settling the migraines could increase and this would be my outcome until I wouldn’t be able to take the pain anymore. Well when I got home I cried more tears in one cry then any one person is allowed in their whole lifetime. I couldn’t understand, I was a good person, always helpful and kind, outgoing, always trying to see the positive side of every situation, loyal and hard working, why me??
With the added stress of this diagnosis, in came the Brain Fog. Whether it started from stress, the meds or from the pain in my head I was like a deer in the headlights. I would put laundry on and another day later go back downstairs to do laundry and find I had already started it… but not finished. I would start the dishes and my daughter would call out to me, I’d leave the water running then when I finished helping her instead of going back to the dishes I would start vacuuming. My husband would walk through the door to laundry baskets on the floor half folded, water running in the sink and me off in another room vacuuming of which I would have completely forgotten that the water was still running. I over ran the kitchen sink twice in one week once.
A funny story once was, I had supper almost ready and my husband came home. He went to the fridge for a drink and when he opened the fridge the pork chops were sitting on a shelf. He called out “Char why are the pork chops in the fridge?” I was confused I said “Why wouldn’t they be, they were for tomorrow’s supper.” Of which he answered, “Phew, I was concerned “what” might be in the oven cooking if the pork chops were still in the fridge.” OH BOY!
As funny as this story was at the time, I knew then I had lost his trust in my ability to function.
Sad to say but from the pork chop incident it only became worse…ketchup in the linen closet, kettle in the fridge, I walked out – locked the door – slammed it shut – only to realize I didn’t have any keys to get back in or get in to my truck, this happened twice. Then I would have to make the humiliating call for my husband to come home and unlock the door for me while my daughter is looking at me with “I can’t believe you just did that eyes”… AGAIN!!… yeah that was fun. God only knows how many times I lost my keys (misplaced is the word I liked to use)…lol. Well at least it provided a little bit of laughter in amongst the pain. Needless to say multitasking was a thing of the past…good riddance I say! Twelve less things I have to do at once is not a bad trade off for the Brain Fog.
I became known as “Vampire Mom”… always dimming the lights. I couldn’t open the curtains anymore to let the beautiful sunlight in, (which has lasted for 3 years now). Even when nighttime came my husband thought, well it’s dark so may be we could at least see the moonlight, but the glare from the cars driving by and the street lights beaming in through the window had me once again closing the curtains. So if by chance my husband got up in the middle of the night and came out to watch a show he could open the curtains then, but he had to make sure they were closed completely before he went back to bed because even if a small trickle of light shone through in the morning and hit my eye in just the right way, it would send me back to the dark bedroom for another 2-3 hours, if I was lucky, and not the whole day. Any light in the house reflecting off any surface was a constant video game of strategizing how I would enter a room. My daughter used to make a joke that they were soon going to have to wear headlamps so they didn’t trip up in the darkness and hurt themselves. Then came more jokes… to not cook with garlic it could poison mom or the joke of when I was a little girl my eyeteeth were removed and my daughter said it was really to stop me from craving blood, to sleep with one eye open. Hardy har-har, and I gave birth to her, ungrateful little…..lol.
Soon came the trouble with driving. There was no way to leave the house without sunglasses no matter if it wasn’t sunny. The worst days where actually foggy days. Wow, the bright white light was like daggers through the center of my brain. But then, the nausea from being the passenger started, not completely concentrating on the road and horizon, or not being in control of how fast we made a turn would send my stomach into rollercoaster mode. So I became designated driver. At first it was hard for my husband to relinquish the keys every time we went out but then it became like driving Miss Daisy.. and I was not the “Miss Daisy”…lol. Soon came jokes of wow mom your every mans dream… you can’t drink, so you are always designated driver, you can’t wear jewelry because of a nickel allergy and your not allowed chocolates due to your headaches can you say “Off The Hook”… No, but I can say “To The Moon!”
Eventually we started seeing patterns to my migraines. I knew better when a low pressure system was approaching then all the meteorologists at Environment Canada. We began to see that when rain or snow or weather was approaching so were my migraines and when winds were increasing so were my migraines. I was always a lover of the news but now when the weather reports came on and if I was not in the room a chorus of “Mommmmm the weather is on!!!!!” would ripple through the house until making my neck muscles cringe. Once we figured out to pay close attention to weather patterns, I could then target my medications to low pressure and high pressure days. When I knew a storm was brewing, I could take an extra Atasol 30 before it hit so that I wouldn’t end up having to take an extra 2 or 3 during the storm. Yeah, the start of less medication, this was progress. *** Just a little update, I now prepare my body and head with Vitamins before the storms or winds increase and it works better then any of the meds did. I will be getting to all the great remedies in just a few blogs.
I also started a daily dosage of Advil Cold and Sinus, one – twice a day, and this also helped to cut down on the amount of Atasol 30’s and Codeine I would have to take on a daily basis by keeping the nasal passages clear. I was now down to about 400-500mg a day of Codeine. It felt like I was starting to get somewhere…oh optimistic me.