8/5/07 They're baa-aack....

23 days! I went 23 days without a migraine headache! The way this year's gone with headaches, that's downright startling.

I know this because I endured 9 straight days of life-altering brutal depressing pain in July, then got really really sick. But the first day I was really sick, I didn't have a headache. And haven't had one since.

Until last night, that is. I felt the "prodrome" -- the warning signs. Irrationally, unbearably, almost painfully sleepy, and very sensitive to loud sharp sounds, though who can tell? Loud sharp sounds are a way of life around here.

Then this morning...the onset of the familiar, dreadful, sharp, pressure and pain. Oh, how wonderful and free life is without it! How productive, optimistic, energetic -- even happy -- I can be about each day!

In the hurried $160 ten-minute brush-off I got from my last appointment (and I do mean last) with the headache doctor, between scribbling his notes and glancing nervously at the clock, he said slightly condescendingly that I should take the Imitrex when I first start to feel the migraine. I reminded him that he'd told me to take it at the onset of pain, not at the prodrome -- two events that can be separated by up to a day. No, no, he said, take it when you start to feel you're going to get it. Cap on pen. Close folder. Fold hands. Direct look at me. "Anything else?" Don't worry, I know where the door is.

I took some Imitrex this morning, and was overall pain-free until tonight, though the pressure and resulting sleepiness were still there all day. I went running tonight too, and the first half of the run was miserable, until the endorphins kicked in and overcame the pain. A good steep uphill took care of that.

My only outing today was to go to a friend's house that's being remodeled, to check out the kitchen and the whole house too. She and her husband and 3-year-old son moved out for the remodel, which is really more like building the entire house from scratch. Last week, I went to another friend's mother's house to check out her very well-thought-out and feature-filled kitchen too. One kitchen isn't finished; the other has been lived in for almost 20 years. Two very valuable perspectives! Each visit is very productive, in getting thinking about big things (flow) and small features (appliance garage or not?).

Lots of sniffing around other peoples' kitchens, reading magazines, quizzing friends and daydreaming has driven home the utter inadequacy of my own kitchen. My existing kitchen only has 5 drawers. Five! And one of those is broken! Which doesn't matter much because it's almost at the floor anyway. Most bathrooms have more drawers!

I brought Julian with me to check out my friend's house. I didn't want to stick Dave with all 3 alone if I didn't have to, and removing Julian from the mix is optimal. He seemed elated at this special trip, saying thank you to me again and again for bringing just him. He asked why Gabriel wasn't coming, and I explained, with some truth, that Gabriel was staying home to "take care" of Katrina. Julian was pretty good at my friend's construction-zone house, for a while, and when he started to get annoying, my friend's husband took him outside to look for squirrels, permanently making a new friend.

When we got home, it turned out that Katrina was still napping -- she took one three-hour nap today. As much as I love baby naps, I'm already ready for her to drop one nap, but she was so tired by 6:00pm that it's clear she's not ready for that yet. She's only 10 months old (today!) after all.

Well, I was looking forward to tomorrow, believe it or not, even though I'll have all 3 all day. Maybe it's because I know that "all 3 all day" is soon going to end, since Gabriel will belong to the schools in a few weeks. How infuriating that I'll spend one of those now-precious "all 3 all day" days fighting with a miserable headache and desperate to go to sleep. I could use another 23 days off.

8/5/07