What's on My Mind This Week

I picked up Cinderella from school today because she had a migraine.  For the fifth time since August 11th when school started.  In sixth grade, she went to the nurse an average of 2 times a month for migraines.  I'm no math wiz, but it looks like now she's having them twice as much.  Or more. Apparently, she has at least seven headache days that she doesn't take medicine for, but they're annoying.

So, last week, I took her with me to my neurologist.  (I'm upping the dose of my medicine again, but that's not the story here.) He definitely thought it was a problem to miss school for headaches--especially a daughter of mine.  He also thinks that she will get worse as she progresses through puberty.  Great.  So, she started on one of the hundreds (that's a slight exageration) of the medications I have tried in the last couple of years.  We're praying she has a better outcome with it than I did.  She also got some "rescue" migraine medication to use when her headache comes on.  It didn't work today, but she may have waited too long to try to catch it.  We'll try again later.

So, how do I feel about this whole thing?  Sad, overwhelmed, guilty, mad, empathetic, and just plain frustrated.  It just hurts so much to watch her be miserable, when I know how much it hurts.  I just want the medication to help her so she doesn't have to miss out on things.  I want it to go away.  I don't want this to control her life like it has to control mine sometimes.

Now, I hope you realize that I know this is not the end of the world.  It is just headaches, and not something that is severely detremental to her health or anything.  She's a happy (if surly), healthy, beautiful teenager, and I'm grateful she's mine.  She is a trooper, and is weathering this fine.  She's pulling straight A's despite missing five half to full days of school.  Her one request is a better curtain in her room so less light comes through.  A request I completely understand and am happy to fulfill.  Perhaps the worst thing about seeing her suffer through a bad day is that I know from painful experience that while it is "just headaches", that headaches are hard and it is no fun.  No fun at all.

So, that's what's on my mind lately.  That, and my dear friend is moving away soon and it stinks. A lot.  But, she had the cutest baby ever last week, so I'll forgive her. ;)  It's a good thing that baby girl is so darn cute.