The Beach

July 8, 2009 - 8:30am @ Seaside, OR

I'm out at the beach now. It rained last night, so the top crust of sand is wet but underneath it's still dry. A seagull screeches next to me as it pecks at, then picks up and flies off with what looks to be a small squarish lump of white driftwood - but which in reality could be anything. I'm sitting on a swing set planted directly into the sand. The wind blows across my body, hitting my left side as it passes. It's a curious feeling to be both warm and cold at the same time. Inside my down jacket I'm warm and toasty - maybe even hot with a hint of sweat along my ribs and under my arms. My hands and face are perfectly normal even without gloves 'cause they're sheltered by my leg and this journal, and my face is tucked away from the wind by a scarf.

The cold air makes my nose run. My left ear aches slightly from the wind pressure, in spite of the two layers of scarf as well as my hat. My stomach slowly rolls and growls, reminding me that I should have grabbed a granola bar or fruit leather on my way out. It's just 8:30 am. My toes are cold - that numb pain you get is twinging in my toes and the soles of my feet. But I don't mind. In fact, I almost like the feeling - it's been so long since I've been here to feel it. I can bury my toes in the sand to shelter and warm them a bit.

The air is fresh this morning - you can't smell any rotting or salty smells that you would in the hot midday sun. It's heavy with moisture. Even though it's not raining or even sprinkling, it is still moist enough to soften the paper slightly. Gray fog hangs over the ocean and envelops the top of the cliff at the south end of the beach. The steady roar of the waves is the most constant sound. An occasional gull cries. Only a handful of people are out - if you didn't look up to see them you could be completely alone.

The wind blows harder, carrying salt water spray along with it and making the empty swings sway from side to side. Even with the fog, it is still bright with diffuse light inside this dome of clouds. You could almost believe that only the small circle of visible land existed. Outside the fog - nothing. Clam diggers with their cylinder shaped digging tools walk by reminding me that there really is a world out there even though hidden.

The view is monochrome - soft gray sky blending at the horizon into darker steely gray ocean broken at the shoreline by white breakers, made a creamy pearl color by the churned up sand. The breaking waves smooth out a wide swath of sand that shimmers and reflects the sky like a mirror. Farther up the beach the sand becomes rough again - free from the influence of the water, but still shaped by the feet of people, birds and crabs. The beach is clean up to there, but now here and there white driftwood logs break up the brown sea of sand. Even farther up the monochrome is broken by brightly colored pieces of litter. A pepsi can crushed in the center, a green granola bar wrapper - nature valley brand, oats and honey flavor - one of my personal favorites. Other unidentifiable bits of material litter the sand. What was probably a straw and a bit of paper, all mix in with the broken shells and washed up seaweed, to make a continuous blanket of garbage littering the beach. Yet from a distance not even noticable or distinguishable from the sand.

Most of the gulls look scruffy - feathers sticking out at odd angles from their necks, back and breasts. With molted blotchy brown and gray markings marring the perfect white of their heads and bodies. But occasionally you might see and unusual bird whose feathers are nicely groomed with pure unbroken white from head to stomach with shiny gray wings all aligned. That is the one time seagulls are even remotely beautiful. Most of the time they look like homeless vagabonds. When not scrounging for bits of food, they face the wind and hunker down on the sand to keep warm. They gather in small groups - always keeping a careful distance from each other as well as any people.

The ocean has always been my friend. I especially love the ocean in a storm. I feel understood. Loved. Wanted. Now that I'm older I recognize God. He met me here.

Great News!

It has been a VERY long time since my last post, I'm sorry...

Well, last week marked a full year of chiropractic treatement, and I now have proper curve in my neck!!! The chiropractor expected my treatment to take at least a year and a half, so I've progressed better than expected. :)

Now that my neck is aligned, I still need maintanance work to make sure my body learns the new position and can stay aligned on its own. My back has been out of whack for over 9 years, so it will take a little while for this new alignment to "stick" and feel normal.

While this is all great news, I'm slightly disapointed. I should have known better and not gotten my hopes up, but I was hoping the migraines would be mostly gone once my neck and hips were properly aligned. However, I need to remember that I have almost a decade of nerve, bone, and muscle damage that needs to heal...

So, I will continue to be patient and at least now I can finally see the end of the tunnel!

Update - Good News

So.... Long time no post.... I figured it was about time for another update, though I'm still not quite ready to resume blogging on a regular basis.

I am doing very good, all things considering. I am still struggling with the migraines, but the chiropractic treatment has been working and I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.

As I mentioned before, my chiropractic treatment is broken down into segments. Each treatment segment is 3 months long, at the end of which the chiropractor does a re-exam with x-rays to see how effective the treatment has been. My chiro estimated that it would probably take a total of 1 & 1/2 years of treatment to get me back in proper alignment. Currently I have finished my first segment of treatment and am in the first month of the second segment.

The first segment was adjustments in the office 3 times a week with traction at home every night. There are two types of traction, one type is where you sit in a chair and your neck is stretched with a weight (like a bag filled with water), and the other type is where you lay on a foam wedge with your head tilted back. I'm doing the first kind (sitting in the chair) and then later on in my treatment I will switch to the wedge.

So, at my first 3 month re-exam, the results were better than expected...I'm responding so well to it that my neck curve increased in the right direction! Now I've just completed the first month of the second segment of treatment were I go in for adjustments in the office 2 times a week with traction at home every night.

With these treatments I have enjoyed a considerable increase in my quality of life. Even though I still deal with chronic migraines, I'm usually able to get up and shower every day by 9am, I can schedule appointments and activities with a high certainty of being able to follow through, and I'm even volunteering on a regular schedule at my church!

Although my migraine situation is improving and there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel (at least in a couple of years), there are still major stressors going on in my personal life. One of those stressors is that my beloved father-in-law is fighting cancer and is currently in the process of a stem-cell transplant. Check out his story at Art's CML Updates.

Thanks for all your support!

On Hold for a While

My blog has been on hold for a while now, and I'm thinking that I'll let that stand for the time being. There are a lot of personal things going on in my life right now with my father-in-law having cancer, my own migraine struggles, among other things. So this will be my last post until further notice.

I do have good news... I think I have finally discovered the root cause of the migraines!! About two years before the migraines hit, I hit my hip hard against the roof of a low car while getting out onto a very high curb. This wrenched my lower back quite severely. I was in pain for at least two weeks, but after seeing a chiropractor a few times (who did not do any x-rays), the pain went away. Since I was no longer in any pain, I thought I was totally healed and everything was fine.

Well, I recently went into a chiropractor who has a different philosophy than any other chiropractor I have seen so far. Rather than focusing on treating the symptoms themselves, he instead concentrates on putting your body back into it's natural shape with the conviction that only then will the body be able to heal itself. He does a complete set of x-rays (rather than isolating a certain spot like the neck) and measures the entire spine to make sure it is in proper allignment. If it is not, then he fixes the mis-allignment.

My x-rays revealed that my pelvis and spine are twisted like a cork-screw! The only thing I can think of that could have caused the twisting was that accident with the car roof. Since the accident was before the migraines, it is conceivable that it took a while for the misallignment of my spine to start affecting my nerves. I've also been an avid swimmer most of my life, so the lack of back pain could be due to how strong my stomach/stabilizer muscles were.

To fix the problem, I am on an aggressive treatment plan where I get adjusted three times a week for three months, then twice a week for three months, then once a week for six or more months until I'm back in proper shape. At every three month interval the chiropractor does a new set of x-rays to monitor my progress. He estimates that since I have been out of allignment since 1999, it could take 1 & 1/2 years to get me back into proper allignment. After that, I shouldn't need any more treatments unless something abnormal happens to knock me out of shape.

This experience has definitely taught me about chiropractors and what to look for. They are NOT all created equal! NEVER let a chiropractor even touch you without a COMPLETE set of x-rays being done. Additionally, the chiropractor should actually measure your allignment on the x-rays. If he/she just looks at them without any measurements, then they really can't say if you are alligned or not. You can use the analogy of a building compared to your body. You can't just eye-ball a wall and see if it is straight or not; you must measure it with a line. It's the same with your body.

Feel free to email me if you would like more details on the differences between a wellness chiropractor and a symptoms-based chiropractor. Unfortunately, most chiropractors that are covered by traditional insurance are the symptoms-based ones...

Hang in there, and know that I'm thinking of you.

Apologies

I feel that I owe you all an apology for kinda falling off the face of the earth for a while. Lately I've been withdrawing from life and have been sort of hibernating. I've had plenty of thoughts on potential posts, but obviously none of them came to fruition.

In a way I'm tired and in another way I'm scared. I am tired of hurting all the time. I am scared that this will never get better.

I guess I have been in a tunnel straining to see the light at the other end. At first I didn't realize what I was feeling or why I didn't have the drive to write. I think now that I didn't particularly feel like dragging you all along with me.

I'm not sure that I'm out of the tunnel, but I am at a cross-roads where I can continue to isolate myself and risk loosing everything I have worked so hard to gather, or I can push myself out of my comfort zone and hopefully gain even more than I have already.

I like this flower because it helps remind me that there are beauty and light to be found if we look for them.

This isn't a promise that I'll be back on my normal writing schedule, but it is at least a start in the right direction. It still hurts to look at the computer screen, so my time is limited. That is another reason for the lack of writing drive.

I want you to know that I think of you often. Like I've said so many times before, it helps knowing that there are people out there thinking of me who know what it feels like to have migraines like mine. Thanks so much for your support!

Quick Note

I can't write much, but I wanted to check in and let you all know that I am doing ok. I am on a new preventative as well as a new abortive, both of which seem to be helping a little. I'll give more details soon.

Until then, I'll leave you with this thought:

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your joys in stone. ~Author Unknown

Announcement and Update

For those of you who don't read ChronicBabe regularly, I'm excited to announce that Jenni, the Editrix, featured me on the second edition of her new weekly feature, LadyBloggers. Check it out here. The feature actually was published Dec 15th, but I haven't been on the computer much at all lately so I wasn't aware of it until now.

Now, an update on my condition: As expected, the migraines are at their worst right now. Winter is the hardest time of year for me even when on a working preventative, so I was planning for this. Unfortunately, my family is constantly hoping for the best and they have had a harder time dealing with this increased level of pain.

I think I've said this before, but I honestly believe that I have the better end of the deal compared to my family... I would choose to be in terrible pain myself any day, rather than watch a family member suffer with me completely powerless to help them.

Even though most of my days are being spent in bed or on the couch, I am doing fairly well emotionally. Everyone came over to our house for Christmas morning and I was able to lay on the couch and enjoy the holiday with them. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Hopefully I will be better soon and back to writing more often. If not, know that I am thinking of you all, my cyber-friends. You will never know how much comfort it brings me just knowing that you all are "out there" thinking of me! :)

Carnival of Compassion

I first started blogging as a way to help keep myself positive in the face of these terrible migraines. I also hoped that I could help boost other's spirits at the same time. Now that I've been blogging just over a year, I've found other people who are trying to help themselves and others with their blogs just like I am.

The most beneficial thing that's come out of blogging is the connection with other people who understand what I'm going through. There is a strange power to being understood and heard.

On that note, welcome to the Carnival of Compassion! In this edition, I will highlight one of my favorite blogs that helps keep me fighting strong against migraines, and then I'll list some newly created blogs that are out there.

One of my all-time favorite blogs is Kerrie's blog, The Daily Headache. This is because Kerrie does all the work of reading the latest information out there and compiling it for easy access. She posts almost every day and I can always count on her having an interesting point of view or some piece of information I didn't know.

Now here are some brand new migraine blogs! Let's check them out and give our support to the authors.

Rob is a husband and new father who struggles with migraines. His blog, Xinc's Domain, discusses medications and migraine symptoms. One of his recent posts discusses the concept of "micro aura".

Art describes himself as "a 20-something home owner part time student full time programmer with a life partner and a dog" who uses photography to keep his sanity. His blog, Pain in the Head, dwells on dealing with the effects of migraine and contemplating future treatments all mixed with a wry sense of humor.

Angel has been blogging for a year now, but I just discovered her blog: Give Me Something To Sing About. She has dealt with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia for 10 years. Being a stay-at-home mother of two, her blog focuses more on the details of her life. I enjoyed her Headache Q&A post.

Finally, this blog is too new for me to know much about it, so I'll just give the link to you: Through the Eyes of a Migraine. It looks like it has potential.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Carnival of Compassion. Keep in mind that I keep a list of great migraine and health related blogs in the sidebar, and I'm always adding more, so go check it out if your ever in the surfing mood! ;)

Winter & Anniversaries

For me, every winter has the feeling of anniversaries. This winter is the first anniversary of my journal and my blog. It has always been the anniversary of my life and Jesus' birth. For seven years now it has been the anniversary of my marriage with a wonderful man.

Sadly it is also the anniversary of the migraines taking over four years ago and the anniversary of having to stop working three years ago. But a wonderful thing, an amazing thing, also happened right after I stopped working and that is the anniversary of truly meeting God in person for the first time.

So while winter may seem like a dead time of year to most people, it is a very alive and renewing time of year for me.

One Word

I got this email from my sister:
"Describe me in ONE WORD...just one word! Send it to me only, then send this message to your friends and see how many strange things people say about you!"

The words that came back about me were:

Serene, Cherished, Sweet, Compassionate, Feeling, Sister, Mine, Thoughtful, Faithful, Beautiful, Talented, Hopeful, Intelligent, Persevering

Migraine Art

My friend Kerrie at The Daily Headache posted about Help Needed for Migraine Art. Here are my answers:

1. How long have you suffered and how much of your time is spent in pain?

I've had headaches ever since I was 12 years old, but they were mostly tension type headaches with just a few migraines, and I didn't know they were migraines at the time. Then in September 2001 I had three headaches that were worse than anything I had previously experienced. I made an appointment and in October I was diagnosed with Migraines.

Ever since my diagnosis the migraines have continued to get worse and I began missing more and more work until finally I had to go on Long Term Disability on December 20th, 2002. That date will be forever burned in my memory.

I have since been approved for Social Security Disability and I am in pain 99% of the time. Right now my daily pain level fluctuates between 4 to 8 on the pain scale. If I'm at a 4 pain level, then I'm having a really great day. A normal day is level 6 pain.


2. What sort of drugs have you been on and what were the side effects? Are the side effects worth it?

I have been on anti-depressants, calcium channel blockers, beta blockers, anti-seizure meds, and bi-polar meds.

The only preventative to ever work was Lithium, a bi-polar med. It was effective from March 2003 to December 2004, but then it stopped working and made me throw up all the time. It was so bad that my husband was having to give me phenergan injections three or four times a week sometimes.

Due to all the injections, I suffered nerve damage in my L4 nerve on the outside of my thigh just above my knee. There is a whole patch of skin that doesn't have feeling and when I'm cold that patch doesn't get any goose bumps. It feels really strange. I have to take Nortryptaline to prevent the nerve pain because the pain can be severe at times and it doesn't respond to pain medications.

Topamax and Depakote, both anti-seizure meds, changed my personality. Topamax was the worst. I suffered panic attacks and complete psychotic episodes with no memory of them afterward. It was scary crazy! Depakote was mild in comparison. With that I was mostly depressed and clumsy. It did increase my bust by one full cup size though, go figure!

So far I haven't had to deal with a preventative that worked well and also gave me bad side effects. I'm not sure which way I would go on that. Right now, the side effects I've suffered through are only worth it because that means one more potential preventative has been eliminated from the list. This way I'm not wondering if there is something out there that might work for me if only I would give it a try.


3. What might you give up to make your migraines go away?

At this point I've given up so much that I really don't have anything else that I could give up. Would I give up one eye or a finger? Maybe...


4. Are your family and friends or coworkers understanding of your pain?

My family are understanding. They knew me before the migraines ever hit, so they've seen how much I've changed due to the weight of constant pain. I can't work anymore, so no coworkers... The friends I have now are the ones who stuck with me through the migraines, so the non-understanding ones faded away.


5. Finally, write anything you think is important. What is the most important thing you want to express about migraines?

So much time is spent in pain that our lives are shortened, both figuratively and literally. Figuratively we have less participation in life from the time spent in bed and literally the stress of constant pain and lack of exercise can reduce our life expectancy.

I think the most important thing migraineurs need to do is fight the migraines as much as possible. Accept the reality of them, then fight them. Don't give in to despair, decide that your life will still be full of meaning and joy in spite of the terrible pain. Find things that make you smile and keep them around you in your house. Find supportive people and dump the downer people. Treasure and make the most of every moment.

Music & iTunes Fun

Music has played a very important role in my life ever since my early childhood. Through music I find both an escape and a way to express my emotions. I like a wide variety of music and I can't go more than a day without listening to it. If I had to choose my all-time favorite bands, they would be Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Tori Amos, and Sheryl Crow. Other high favorites are Bjork, Incubus, DJ Shadow, VAST, Sigur Rós, and Coldplay. In all reality, it would take too long to list the CD's that I listen to on a regular basis. What I've been listening to the most this week are Tori Amos, VAST, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, and Poe.

On that note, my sister did a fun little iTunes music survey that I'm going to do too! If you have iTunes, open it up and search the library to answer the questions below. Then post a comment so I can go read your answers on your blog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Total Number of Songs in Library:
2089 songs, which is 6.1 days worth of continuous music! (I'm still not finished importing all of my CD's.)

2. Sort by Song Title:
Place: Song Title - Band Name (Album Name)
First: #34 - Dave Matthew's Band (Under The Table And Dreaming)
Last: Zoo Station - U2 (Achtung Baby)

3. Sort by Time:
Place: (Time) Song Title - Band Name (Album Name)
First: (0:09) Horn Intro - Modest Mouse (Good News For People Who Love Bad News)
Last: (23:28) Echoes - Pink Floyd (Meddle)

4. Sort by Album:
Place: Album Name - Band Name
First: () - Sigur Rós
Last: World Of Noise - Everclear

5. Top Five Most Played Songs:
(Times Played) Song Title - Band Name (Album Name)
1. (51) Hurt - Johnny Cash (American IV - The Man Comes Around)
2. (43) Holding Out For A Hero - Frou Frou (Shrek 2 Soundtrack)
3. (39) Run - Snow Patrol (Final Straw)
4. (33) Love Song - 311 (Greatest Hits '93 - '03)
5. (33) I Don't Have Anything - VAST (Music For People)

6. Find "death", How many songs come up?
Song Title - Band Name (Album Name)
1. Instant Death - The Beasty Boys (Hello Nasty)
2. Death Of A Party - Blur (Blur)
3. Death or Glory - The Clash (London Calling)
4. Hands Around My Throat - Death In Vegas (Animatrix: The Album)
5. Deathblow - Deftones (Deftones)
6. Wildfire - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
7. Will You - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
8. Change The World - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
9. Execute The Sounds - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
10. Find My Way - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
11. Revolution - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
12. The Reasons - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
13. Freedom Fighters - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
14. Waiting On Today - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
15. I And Identify - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
16. Asthma - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
17. Eternal - P.O.D. (Payable On Death)

Find "love", How many songs come up?
71 Songs, by 32 Artists, on 34 Albums!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turtles

My favorite animals are turtles. I've always liked them, but it was in high school when I started identifying with them. I was on the swim team and I had a habit of talking to everyone in the dressing room instead of getting dressed. Because of this I was ALWAYS the last one out of the locker room. The coaches would turn off the lights when I came out without checking the locker room because they knew no one else would be in there or else I would be talking to them instead of walking out!


At the end of the swim season the president and vice-president of the swim team came up with gag gifts and nick names for each of the swimmers. My gift was a packet of turtle stickers and I was dubbed the "Turbulent Tortoise: fast in water, slow on land". Ever since then my love of turtles and my identity with them has been permanent and unshakable.

I think one reason I identify with turtles so much is that they have a shell that they carry around all the time. Like them, I typically like to stay close to home, and when I am away from home I like to have my family with me. Also like turtles, every so often I need to withdraw into my shell and get away from the world to regenerate myself. After a while I'll come out and be social again.



Whatever the reason, I'm forever in love with turtles!

Latest News...

Last week I fell down the stairs. :( Somehow when I was halfway down the stairs my foot slipped and I landed on my tail bone. I bounced down a few more steps while still on my backside, and then slid down the rest to the bottom where I landed on my hands and knees. Needless to say, I'm pretty sore from that. I have a bruise on my elbow and my knee hurts slightly. Those are minor though compared to my tail bone pain. I'm not sure if I just bruised it or if I broke it, but it has hurt really bad ever since then. I can't sit right and I have to be really careful how I move. Sometimes it hurts as bad as my head!

I'm blaming this incident on the Depakote because it has been making me excessively clumsy lately. I've mostly noticed it through dropping things all the time. I never did that before the Depakote and now sometimes I practically throw things when I drop them.

I was going to wait until my neurologist appointment this Friday to talk to her about going off the Depakote, but my fall down the stairs was the last straw. I called my neurologist and asked if I could go off the Depakote right away. She said yes and gave me a ramp-down schedule so I'll be off it by Friday. I can't wait!!

I'm not sure what preventative my neurologist will suggest for me next. We had discussed trying Lithium again in January, but now that my thyroid is enlarged I'm thinking I want to wait a while before going back on it. Come to find out, both Lithium and Depakote can mess with your thyroid... Luckily my thyroid function is still ok and the biopsy came back fine.

Maybe we'll just not try anything for a while and give my body a break from all the chemicals. I'm tired of all the pills and side effects!

Staying Positive

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement and prayers. I'm pretty sure that the Depakote is the culprit for my depression lately. Which means that I've been working harder at staying positive.

I am looking forward to January since that is when my neurologist said that I can try the Lithium again. I will be seeing her soon, and maybe she will take me off the Depakote until then, or maybe she will have something else for me to try. Either way, I really don't care anymore. I've prepared myself to expect unrelenting full-force migraine pain through the holidays and I am surprisingly okay with that.

I am just taking things one day at a time. Actually, some days are one hour or even one minute at a time. God is definitely near and comforting me, but that doesn't stop the Depakote-induced sadness. At least this depression is from an external source. Knowing that it will go away soon is enough to endure it.

I remind myself that I must never give up the fight against migraines. I will never surrender to despair. I try to get rid of anything and everything that brings me down. I have FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE. I lean on these things and surround myself with them. I gather people and memories around me that bring these things into my life. I am strong and will thrive through this trial!