It's Catch up Time!

First of all, I want to apologize to all my friends for being absent from this for the past couple of weeks. I just didn't have the energy to post even though I did have some news to pass on. But then again, those of you who know me know that I post very sporadically at best! LOL!

Now to catch up...

In my last post I was hoping to avoid losing a day of work due to the migraine that had hit me that afternoon. Unfortunately, when I woke up Tuesday morning, I was mostly blind in my right eye, and was watching the most wonderful fireworks display INSIDE my head! I was able to see enough to dial my boss' number and leave the obligatory "calling in sick" message. Then I took my "cocktail" of drugs and went back to bed. I slept until 11:30 when Rebel decided to let me know he was tired of dozing at the foot of my bed and jumped up on the bed to "wash my face" again. After cuddling him for a few minutes, I attempted to sit up and was VERY relieved that my head didn't try to explode immediately. I could still see the flickering colours at the edges of my vision, but both eyes were working again and if I didn't move too quickly, the pain was bearable. After having something to eat, I called my doctor and booked an appointment. The earliest I could get in to see him was Friday evening, which was acceptable to me. Other times it's been a few weeks before I could get in to see him.

I went back to work on Wednesday, and managed to turn in some of my most productive days, despite having a constant dull thumping in my head and having to wear my sunglasses indoors! My lead hand, Samantha (Sam) has been extremely supportive and encouraging during this ordeal. Several times each day she would "check in" with me to see how I was feeling and to let me know that if I had to go early, to do so without fear of reprisals. She even told me she had spoken to the Operations Manager (OM) about me and had informed him that he could not afford to lose me! What a gal! She's only about half my age, but she already has the skills of a great manager! Angela, the overall lead (we have two levels of lead hands in our warehouse, Angela is our "overlead" while Sam, Jeremy, Cora, Josh and Scott are the departmental leads - confusing, I know, but that's the way it is!) has also been very supportive as well. It's good to have these two young ladies in my corner as they report directly to my boss, the OM.

Friday evening my wife and I went to see my doctor. I may have mentioned this before, but the last time I spoke to him about my migraines a couple of years ago, he was insistent that "Men do not get migraines! They are a FEMALE problem caused by estrogen. Men get CLUSTER HEADACHES from too much stress. Take some Advil and learn how to relax!" So, for the past couple of years, I've been suffering through these terrible "cluster headaches" with nothing but off-the-shelf remedies like Advil, Aspirin and Tylenol to relieve the pain. Well! Was I in for a surprise THIS time! During these last years, my doctor's son has been diagnosed as a migraine sufferer! Now, MY doctor is the "foremost expert on migraines"!!!! LMAO! He immediately started asking me about my symptoms, and instead of brushing me off like he used to, he actually took notes! He did some rudimentary tests which he said ruled out the likelihood of me having a brain tumour or aneurysm. He told me that the eyes were the first indicator of something like that and that my eyes showed no signs of "foreign objects" in my head. WHEW! That had been something that had worried me over the years. Then he acknowledged that I was suffering migraines and proceeded to give me a lecture on the triggers. I kept interrupting him, just to let him know that I had done my homework too! Tee hee! He did give me samples of two different migraine medications, Axert and Relpax. Next time I have a migraine, I'm to take one, and the next time, take the other and see which one works best with the least amount of side effects. I'm also to document what I ate for up to two days before the migraine as well as anything else I can think of to try to determine my unique triggers. He told me that if we can identify my triggers, and eliminate them from my lifestyle, then we could very well eliminate migraines as well. (Fat chance of that! I already know one of my main triggers, and you can't eliminate the weather!!!) If we can't eliminate the triggers and the frequency gets worse, then he'll put me on a preventative plan which would mean taking pills everyday for the rest of my life. He warned me that the preventative plan has some "serious side effects of it's own" so is hesitant to use it unless absolutely necessary. I was just glad that now I had something stronger to take than Advil, et al if I needed it, and that in itself is a major relief!

One problem with not posting in a while... the "catch-up" posts tend to become long-winded! I'll wind this one down now because I still have a pile of work to do on this year's Christmas Eve programmes! Procrastination never gets anything done, unfortunately!!!