Back at work I am since Wednesday, with office hours yesterday that extended to 8 p.m. because I took myself off for a lunch meeting with Alison (my friend and employer, who also bought the meal) and later for an hour's shiatsu treatment with Charlene (my friend and co-worker, who also writes for the Wadena News), and so I stayed late to make sure what needs to be done is done. It was still less than an eight-hour day of actual work.
We have a second man in the office now, in the new year, and also his dog. More male energy! The two men are still outnumbered two to one.
This has been a headachy nauseated week for me so far — fun fun fun. I have had these "neck migraine" bullshit things since I was 28 years old. I have had my eyes checked, my jaw checked. I have seen doctors and alternative healers and even psychics. I've had regular chiropractic treatments, regular therapeutic massage. I've tried cutting out every kind of thing — various foods, drinks — to see if it made any difference, whether the neck thing could be traced to an allergy. I've done yoga, walked, lifted light weights, worked on my posture. I've tried to eat three regular meals a day and snacks in between, and more protein. I'm not very good at that kind of routine and don't like eating when I don't feel hungry, but I try. I try to make sure I drink enough water. I try to relax, to release tension in my neck and shoulders, where I do tend to hold it without even realizing.
Once I even requested of my inner self a dream answer, and just the moment before I woke up, was in a room with a doctor in a white lab coat, who asked me if I was getting enough sleep. At the time I probably wasn't, as Emil was still a nursing baby who woke several times a night, and boy was I cranky about that and sometimes even not very nice, and thank goodness Gord was a prince who often got up with the kid and got him something to eat or drink.
I've also worked on my thoughts, my beliefs and expectations about my physical health, trying to make sure I'm not sabotaging myself somehow. I'm healthy and fit, I insist. I deserve good health and physical comfort. And so on.
Nothing has made a damn bit of difference, except that the chiropractic treatments I got every week for a year helped me recognize the beginnings of the neck thing so I could sometimes head it off at the pass rather than waking up in the morning with it full blown and impossible to manage.
Anyway, all this old-person talk about my physical malady in order to tell you that yesterday I made an appointment with a retired physiotherapist who is now doing alternative therapies using both her old skills and some new ones. She is very good at what she does, I think, and last year (or was it the year before? or even the year before that?), she is the one whose ministrations helped me when my back had gone out so ridiculously that I couldn't even wipe my bum in the ordinary way, and this had gone on for such a long time. As always, I am hopeful that someday I won't have to take a frigging anti-inflammatory eight times a month — one that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and when it doesn't, I spend the day puking.
For years I thought that because Grandma had had migraines that stopped after she had a hysterectomy, it was hormonal and once past menopause my migraines and my sister Karen's (she gets the same ones, only hers sometimes last three days) would stop. I haven't had a period for about three years (yay! so over and done with that shit! don't miss it a bit) but the frequency of migraines hasn't changed.
So wish me luck. Next week Elaine will show me exercises to strengthen my upper back and shoulders, I presume, and I will do them faithfully and have no more migraines. Yep, that's the plan!
Oh, and I want to bring to your attention this perfect expression from a blogging friend, Maggie:
"The happily ever after is, after all, full of ups and downs and all arounds." Is that ever true! You can visit Maggie's blog HERE.
