Starting to feel like a human again
Yesterday was Friday, the last day of the workweek, and I was tired. But when I returned home, I knew I had in front of me: making and serving dinner, cleaning up after dinner, cleaning and disinfecting the hedgehog's cage, giving her a bath and trimming her nails, a volunteer shift in the library at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, my creative thinking project, reading and homework for two classes, some database application work for one of my husband's clients, and maybe some work for my job, as we try to reconcile the billed and unbilled revenues for 2006 before our financials are audited next week. Just thinking of all this made me even more tired.
Shortly after the kids and I got home, Rob repaired to bed with a headache. Robert and Becca went to the back yard to play with the dogs, and I sat in a chair as tears streamed down my cheeks. After the kids came in, I got dinner going while they worked on homework. We ate dinner, and we cleaned up together. Then they went back to their homework, and I started working on Angel's cage. I put her into her critter ball; she huffed at me when I woke her up, but then settled down and appeared to have fun tooling around the kitchen floor while I washed her cage accessories. Then I changed out the bedding and put her cage back together. I warmed her bed in the microwave and got it set up under her hide box. Angel loves her baths in the kitchen sink. I put in about an inch of nice, warm water, and she clambers all around. I'll splash water over her back, massage her quills, and then rub her soft belly fur. While she's in the water, I trim her nails. Then I pick her up in a towel and massage her as dry as I can, and we relax in a warm, soft blankie until I'm confident that she's dry. Last night, Rob and the munchkins were upstairs during all of this, so I sat on the sofa, cradling my little quill-rat-pig (FYI: hedgehogs are related to neither rats nor pigs; it's just a fond pet name) while listening to some soft classical music. And as I sat there, I started to experience that peculiar disturbance in my vision that heralds a migraine. Greeeaaat. Just what I needed, on top of throbbing shoulders, and all that work ahead of me for the weekend: a migraine.
I decided not to take the migraine abortive - Imitrex, I think - because it usually leaves me messed up for a couple days. Instead, I took aleve and trazadone, and I went upstairs to lie down. It was only 7:30, but I went to bed. I woke up frequently during the night, which has been pretty typical of late, and finally got up at 7:22 this morning. I came downstairs and tended the beasties, and noticed that I was feeling incredibly nauseated. So I made a single slice of toast, fixed a glass of water, and sat on the couch with my eyes closed. Within about a half hour, the sunlight filtering in through the windows was too bright to stand, and keeping my eyes closed was a survival tactic, rather than merely a relaxation technique. My son wanted to work on his weekend chores, but he was kind enough not to vacuum anywhere near me, the blessed boy! And my husband decided that he would take both kids, so that the three of them could work our library volunteer shift today, so that I could have the quiet house to myself for four or five hours. The blessed man!
Although my head is hurting, I had not gotten my stomach settled enough to take painkillers until the last hour or so. I took a meclizine for the nausea this morning, and it seems to have helped, so I'll probably hit the advil bottle when I finish this post (so that I can take aleve at bedtime, if I need it).
So today, I am profoundly thankful for the thoughtfulness of my family. I am also thankful for the many medicines available to us, and that I have the ability to walk into my kitchen and select an over-the-counter med to help make things better.
Peace be with you today!
P.S. I added a picture of Spike to the post about her death, so you can see what she looked like.
