Day 5 & MIGRAINE

You know what's (not) funny. Last night, I re-read all my posts to back when I started this blog. It was the migraines that inspired me to write. Even though it had been 3 weeks since I've had one, I found myself lying awake in bed thinking about them.

And what happens this morning? I'm having a grand 'ol day at work... no classes just lots of time for planning and catching up. Feeling super satisfied and energized from my 9 hour sleep, egg & swiss on whole wheat toast, and a cold press iced coffee from Benny's.... and BOO - an aura just sneaks up on me. As i struggle to see through zigzag white lines I pop in a treximet and hope for the best. Within a half hour my left temple (always the left) is throbbing and I feel like I'm going to puke. Somehow (I probably shouldnt have) I drove home, found parking, and curled up in the dark with a pack of expired trader joe's frozen raspberries draped over my eyes.

6 hours later the headache was still here. I decided I was going to use the dreaded sumavel dose pro. This medication is pretty f'in scary. The last time I used it was 2 years ago, and upon administering, screamed so loud I surprised myself. This is what it looks like :

I don't know why it says "press the button." Also I do it on my outer thigh, not my stomach. Its compressed air, not a needle but IT HURTS SO BAD. And I do not know what I would do if I was diabetic because it seriously took me like 15 minutes to push it into my leg.

Anyway, the effect is almost instantaneous. The medicine goes directly into your bloodstream so I almost immediately started feeling better.

In other news, having a migraine makes me extremely, nauseous & queasy if not unable to keep anything down at all. So instead of my huge salad that I prepared for myself last night, I had to go for chickarina soup & pretzel sticks. While not necessarily unhealthy, the soup is filled with sodium and processed meatballs... the pretzels just unnecessary carbs. But I always want soup and pretzels when I'm sick, and both those foods make me think of being home :(

...

Anne Taintor can always cheer me up on a day when I feel helpless and powerless. Lately I have been obsessed with the "create your own caption" contest. I seriously die laughing, I don't know why I think these are so funny! Here are some of my favs:

Day 4

Ahhhh. Today was/is rough. Why am I always hungry??? Boo.

Bfast
-nonfat vanilla yogurt
-1/4 cup of oatmeal with honey (old fashioned steel cut)
-coffee

Lunch
-salad with the fixings (pic below)

Dinner
-baked yam w/ feta (trying something new...)

Snacks
-golden raisins and dark chocolate chips
-pistachios
-aaaaand the killer: bag of baked Doritos (it was the 25cents pack- but still bad!)
-glass of white wine
-pretzels

The snacks kill me. But I am just so hungry between meals! I have my first coffee around 7 then eat breakfast around 9, and I usually force it down because I'm not that hungry. I have a break at work from 9-12:30, so I usually eat lunch around 11:30. Then I teach straight through til 4 and I am RAVENOUS. I think the fact that I stand on my feet and talk, literally, for four hours straight makes me hungry. I drink a ton if water but its not enough.

In other news M & I are trying to plan our first trip to Grenada!!! I am so excited because I have yet to see where he grew up and lived most his life.... And I think it will make me fall in love with him all over again :)

Day 3

No pics today. My day was crazy at work and I just didn't remember to take pictures. I kind of have a headache which is making me crazy salty crunchy snacks. No good.

Breakfast
-Siggy's yogurt
-2 cups of coffee with my new au natural cream and sugar

Lunch
-Homemade chicken soup

Dinner (not yet had)
-Organic Spinach salad with: black beans, yellow roasted peppers, and chicken breast (deli meat) or turkey pepperoni ---- the deli meat has some additives, but I have it in my fridge and before I can make my kitchen "all real food" I need to finish eating what I have first :(

Snacks
-Strawberries
-Carrots & White bean hummus
-Pistachios (I just LOVE them. I could honestly crack and eat the whole bag. They are pretty high in fat but if I'm sticking to this plan then it would be considered "good fat."

Other news:
I CANNOT get the motivation to exercise!! I even hunkered down with a box of tissues to watch biggest loser last night, and still it did nothing but continue to instill this icy fear in my heart that I will one day end up like those people!

I am just so tired after work I can't make myself work out:(

Day 2 real food

Success! Today was better than yesterday

Breakfast
-2 cups of coffee with organic half & half and all natural cane sugar!
-Siggi's yogurt


Lunch
-salad: organic baby spinach, carrots, lowfat feta, black beans, and about tablespoon of mini turkey pepperoni (so cute) and homemade apple cider vin
-cherries

Snack

-granola bar (which Julie informs me is no good!)
-white bean hummus and carrots

Dinner
-homemade chicken soup (have some frozen)

Other:
Today I leaned how to crochet!!!! One of my students, Millia, taught me. It was soooo hard but I succeededd in the easiest stitch: the chain. I'm so excited

10 Days of Real Food

Today was the first official day of my 10 days of real food challenge that I'm doing with my sister. "Real" food means absolutely no processed foods or refined sugar whatsoever, including refined grains. While doing this, I plan to eat more paleo-ish (which doesn't allow any grains at all except sweet potatoes but is a little more flexible encouraging 1-2 "off" meals per week.

Today was okay but definitely not perfect.

Breakfast:
-2 cups of coffee (good) with 3 French vanilla coffeemate in each (bad)
-Muller lowfat yogurt (good) w/ strawberry purée (bad)

Lunch:
-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (good) with shake n bake (bad)
-Organic quinoa (good)
-Mixed salad (good) w/ handful of golden raises (good) and spoonful of wild rice (good)
-1/4 cup lowfat feta (good)
-Homemade dressing apple cider vinegar + olive oil (good)

Snack:
-Hot green tea (good)
-Organic omega granola bar
-cherries
-glass of red wine

Dinner:
-Homemade turkey chili (ground turkey breast, kidney beans, black beans, tomatoes, red yellow and green peppers, onion, garlic and some spices). I have some frozen that I'm going to defrost
-slice of 100% whole wheat organic bread


Basically the things I labeled as "bad" aren't really unhealthy... They just don't fall under the category of "real food."

I plan to remedy some of this by going shopping (which I neglected to do over the weekend) tonight to get:
-Fage 0% plain w/ honey (Paleo calls for whole milk but the nonfat Fage has a ton of protein and no extra added sugar/preservatives)
-Organic half n half for my coffee and natural sugar (no sugar is really allowed, but this will be better than the flavored coffeemate.) And I cannot have my coffee without some sort of lightener and sweetener
-a bunch of fresh fruits and veggies
-yams

So, here's the thing with the shake n bake. I have become grossed out by any type of boneless skinless meat (chicken, pork) because I can't grill it in the winter, and baking or pan frying just makes it taste gross! (To me). My mom suggested I tried shake n bake. Unlike bread crumbs, it doesn't require eggs to stick - just water. It also give it a semi fried taste (who doesn't love fried chicken) of crispy on the outside, hot and moist on the inside. However.... Check out the ingredients below... Definitely a lot of NON natural things. I haven't decided yet how much I will care about this. Literally about a teaspoon goes on each piece of chicken - and if it'd going to get me to cook and eat chicken, maybe it's worth it???

Reality Check

Last night I was jolted back into the reality of why I started this blog: pain. Why am I even sitting down to write this post? I don't know, the last thing I want to do is relive the nightmare of last night. But part of me feels like maybe I can get it all out of my body by transferring it to here.

Its been at least 5 months since my last migraine. I was starting to fall into one of the "I'm cured" attitudes that dangerously teases me 1-2x a year. I will never be cured. I will always live with the threat of a migraine lurking around the corner. The more I allow myself to imagine its over, the worse it will be when it begins again.

I woke up around 3am with a dull ache behind my eyes. This is a strange feeling, I thought, as I stared at my face in the bathroom mirror. I had a relaxing evening and had gone to bed at nearly 9:00... I couldn't figure out why my eyes held this tired, aching feeling.

I got back in to bed and within minutes of hitting the pillow... the dull ache transformed into a searing pain around both my temples. It still wasn't "migraine-worthy" so I got back up and took two aleve, drank a glass of water, and crawled back into bed.

20 minutes passed (the usual time it takes for aleve to work for me) and the pain now pulsated around my eyes, temples, and forehead. A panic crept into my chest as the top of my head also began to throb. Usually, my migraines are preceded by an aura, then almost exactly 20 minutes later a throbbing pain in one temple or the other. I tried to convince myself that since I didn't have an aura, this couldn't be a migraine... but to be safe, got back up and took one of the migraine pills.

30 minutes later I was up and pacing around the apartment. My head was so bad I couldn't lower it down to my pillow. I was hit by waves of nausea that sent me, sweating, running to the bathroom. I held a bag of ice on my head and curled up on the bathroom rug, waiting for something to happen.

With one eye opened, I peeked at the Percocets jammed in the corner of the medicine cabinet, stashed only for emergencies. This was now an emergency. I quickly took one and attempted to crawl back into bed. My head still wouldn't allow me to rest it on the pillow, so I sat up and stared at the dark window, waiting and hoping.

I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I was pulled upright with intense stomach cramps. I barely made it to the bathroom before puking a belly filled with pills and water :( Damn those painkillers!

But suddenly... the pain began to subside. The nausea shrank to a tiny pull in my stomach. I checked the time - 6am. Three hours of torment finally ending.

Almost 12 hours later and I'm just getting up. Another day lost to the darkness of a migraine. My brain tempts me to feel relief, happiness, a renewed sense of energy. But the leftover twinges of pain pull me into the familiar worry of wondering - what is wrong with me - and how much time until it happens again.

On Gratitude

I've been thinking a lot about gratitude.

Louie Schwartzberg says:

"Beauty and seduction are nature's tool for survival because we protect what we fall in love with. It opens are hearts and makes us realize we are a part of nature, and we're not separate from it. When we see ourselves in nature it also connects us to everyone one of us, because its clear that its all connected in one."

Louie created a video about gratitude and its connection to happiness. His images of nature through the eyes of both a child and an elderly man just warms my heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ

I've been thinking a lot about gratitude, not because of nature, but because of Marvin. I read this quote the other day:

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

There have been countless moments in the past 11 months where I have found myself in a state of complete happiness. Almost immediately following this bliss - I feel an overwhelming panic of what would happen if it were to be taken away. I can't stop myself; one feeling always, eventually, leads to the other.

Marvin tells me this feeling is fear. And the only thing to replace the fear with is gratitude. Somehow I never thought about this before. Now, it is in each moment where I feel an undeniable sense of happiness, I am able to ultimately identify my true feelings: gratitude.

Long Beach sunset, third date with Marvin, December 2011