Today is my anniversary. Not my wedding anniversary or even some creepy kind of anniversary (I don't understand people who celebrate the anniversary of the conception of their child, for instance) but today marks six months since I last took any Excedrin. Big deal, you think, lots of people can say that. But, you have to take into account that of those 183 days, I wanted, and needed, to take Excedrin for at least 150 of them. And that's being generous. I'm pretty sure I had a headache for about 181 1/2 of those days.
So, why did I torture myself? Well, the thing is, I get bounceback headaches, or a worse headache, when the medicine wears off, and then I need more, and then I take more, and then I start doing crazy things like thinking I am going to pass out because my stomach hurts and my heart is pounding out of my chest. Oh, AND it hardly ever works more than a tiny bit and then I can't stop taking it and then I feel worse and then I feel guilty because I feel worse and I've drugged myself and I knew that I shouldn't and I start taking my frustration out on my kids and my husband and my neighbors dumb dogs that won't start barking, and even on the nice cashier at Target, and it is just. NOT. GOOD. (Phew.)
Not to mention that more than one doctor of mine and several other "experts" online say that it can stay in your system for a while and that all it really does is compound my every day headache problem. So, I wanted to get it out of my system for good. So that I could say that any headache I have now is not a result of Excedrin. And because it is just not really a good idea to eat Excedrin like it is candy. Imagine that.
I think I thought if I could go without Excedrin, eventually my headaches would get better, or even go away. No such luck. I will say they are better than they were six months ago, but it's not because of the Excedrin, it's because of the other drugs, probably.
I'm sure none of you really care about my Excedrin habits, nor my neighbors dumb dog, but I will tell you that today is a huge day in my book. I can't believe I made it, and I have to say there is no way I could have done it without prayer and support from my family and definitely strength from heaven.
So, what next? What I really want to do is have a party and serve Excedrin and Sprite cocktails. But people might think that was wierd. So, instead, I am going to do what my new headache specialist doctor suggests, and that is to get an infusion through IV of medication to turn the "switch" in my head that is stuck at "on" to the "off" position. He thinks anyone who has had a headache for longer than three days qualifies, so I am definitely qualified. You ever heard of people that have five PhDs but they sell hot dogs for a living? I am THAT over qualified. So, I get five days of infusions instead of two and I get to do them next week.
If it doesn't work, I'm going back to my old plan: Over Dose on Excedrin. Only, this time, I'll see if I can get it in IV form. I don't even need the Sprite.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query excedrin. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query excedrin. Sort by date Show all posts
August 4, 2009
October 20, 2009
(Not So) Fabulous Pictures
Has it really been almost a week since I last posted? Wow. I guess it's been a pretty rough week around here. Not really anything out of the ordinary--just had some bad headache days. Hmm...what else?
Snow White has been home sick with a fever for two days. She woke me up in the night because she was worried that if she has the Swine Flu she ought to tell me. :) I have no idea if she has it, but she is running a fever and has a cough and cold. It's pretty mild. We're just hoping no one else gets it. I'm afraid it may be just a matter of time, though.
Saturday I "fell off the wagon", so to speak. I took Excedrin, and it had been a really long time since I had any. Is it really falling off the wagon if you plan on jumping off? Maybe not. I decided ahead to take some medicine so that I could make it to a corn maze/hayride church activity with my family. We had a good time, and could have had some really fabulous pictures, had I remembered the camera. Grrrr--I hate when I do that. This time the activity was with a bunch of college-aged kids, so I didn't even have a fellow parent friend or a nice 4th grade teacher to back me up. Trust me, though--the leaves were gorgeous, and the girls were adorable.
The Excedrin was able to take the edge off so that I could have some fun, and it was nice to be out of the house doing something with the family and not wishing I were in a dark room instead. The girls loved the hayride, and getting lost in the corn maze was pretty great, too. The S'mores and hot chocolate were their favorite things. I can't think of anything better to do on a balmy (ha-it was 40 degrees!) fall evening. It was perfect, (except for it being like winter outside).
Also this week, the girls spent a considerable amount of time doing a picture-by-picture movie that included this picture:
King wouldn't help them set the movie to music, as hit-and-runs are against the law. I guess I'm glad that he cared more about the law and principle than their creative processes. I'm not sure if it was bad judgment or a really bad migraine that made me think the picture video they created was pretty darn funny. Good thing King is here to keep us all in check. What would we do without that guy?
Snow White has been home sick with a fever for two days. She woke me up in the night because she was worried that if she has the Swine Flu she ought to tell me. :) I have no idea if she has it, but she is running a fever and has a cough and cold. It's pretty mild. We're just hoping no one else gets it. I'm afraid it may be just a matter of time, though.
Saturday I "fell off the wagon", so to speak. I took Excedrin, and it had been a really long time since I had any. Is it really falling off the wagon if you plan on jumping off? Maybe not. I decided ahead to take some medicine so that I could make it to a corn maze/hayride church activity with my family. We had a good time, and could have had some really fabulous pictures, had I remembered the camera. Grrrr--I hate when I do that. This time the activity was with a bunch of college-aged kids, so I didn't even have a fellow parent friend or a nice 4th grade teacher to back me up. Trust me, though--the leaves were gorgeous, and the girls were adorable.
The Excedrin was able to take the edge off so that I could have some fun, and it was nice to be out of the house doing something with the family and not wishing I were in a dark room instead. The girls loved the hayride, and getting lost in the corn maze was pretty great, too. The S'mores and hot chocolate were their favorite things. I can't think of anything better to do on a balmy (ha-it was 40 degrees!) fall evening. It was perfect, (except for it being like winter outside).
Also this week, the girls spent a considerable amount of time doing a picture-by-picture movie that included this picture:
King wouldn't help them set the movie to music, as hit-and-runs are against the law. I guess I'm glad that he cared more about the law and principle than their creative processes. I'm not sure if it was bad judgment or a really bad migraine that made me think the picture video they created was pretty darn funny. Good thing King is here to keep us all in check. What would we do without that guy?
January 28, 2010
Party At My House!
You are invited to the party of the decade! You won't want to miss it. We will be celebrating three simultaneous fantastic events: my insurance company's decision to deny my appeal for coverage of Botox treatment for chronic migraines (on the grounds that it is "experimental"); the Doctor's declaration of failure of said treatment (not that he had to tell me that); and my return to a (false semblance of) real life, in which I stop maintenance medications that are not working, and instead use (and teeter on the brink of abuse) Excedrin anytime I dang well feel like it, no matter the consequences (stomach pain, jitters, bounce-back headaches, kidney failure--all good stuff!) so that more people around me will continue to think I feel fabulous all of the time. Wahooo!
No gifts please--unless you can get your hands on one of those Costco size bottles of Excedrin or have found a new kind of ice pack that stays frozen for a full night. Those I will accept. Please bring drinks to share (non-alcoholic--dangit!) and plenty of chocolate. Well, actually any kind of sweets will do. I will be providing the artwork (lots of MRI films--they are so hip and modern framed and hung on the wall), the reading materials (lots of medical records!), and more chocolate. And party hats.
More details will follow. I will decide on time and date when I don't have a headache anymore. So, um...watch for that...um, yeah. It's gonna be super-duper fun. :)
No gifts please--unless you can get your hands on one of those Costco size bottles of Excedrin or have found a new kind of ice pack that stays frozen for a full night. Those I will accept. Please bring drinks to share (non-alcoholic--dangit!) and plenty of chocolate. Well, actually any kind of sweets will do. I will be providing the artwork (lots of MRI films--they are so hip and modern framed and hung on the wall), the reading materials (lots of medical records!), and more chocolate. And party hats.
February 24, 2010
It Was Snow Fun
When I went to visit my sister, I planned to be gone for eight school days. Truth be told, I felt it was a little long. But I also knew that King would be there every morning to get the girls off to school safely, and that, minus two days, he'd be there when they got home. Arrangements were made for those two days, and I felt pretty good about them being well taken care of. They would be in school for around seventy-five hours of the time I was gone, leaving King plenty of time to work, and King could handle everything. (He's fabulous, in case you didn't know.)
Well, that is what I thought would happen. Instead, they had six snow days and two delayed days, giving them ten hours in school and many hours of unsupervised Wii and TV time. They thought it was great. They missed me, but they also loved having the down time with technology they don't normally get, and absolutely loved their new dancing Wii game. Cinderella is mad I didn't let her go with me on the trip. She could have made up those two 1/2 school days in her sleep, she says. It would have been great to have the girls with me, but no one can predict the future, so they were home.
Anyway, we all survived the days apart. King had it the worst. (He always does.) :( It was stressful for him to deal with the delays and the changed activities because of weather, etc. But, he is a trooper, and he did swimmingly. We're all recovered (even me, after too much Excedrin use on my trip) and we're back to normal life as we know it. Whatever normal is.
Well, that is what I thought would happen. Instead, they had six snow days and two delayed days, giving them ten hours in school and many hours of unsupervised Wii and TV time. They thought it was great. They missed me, but they also loved having the down time with technology they don't normally get, and absolutely loved their new dancing Wii game. Cinderella is mad I didn't let her go with me on the trip. She could have made up those two 1/2 school days in her sleep, she says. It would have been great to have the girls with me, but no one can predict the future, so they were home.
Anyway, we all survived the days apart. King had it the worst. (He always does.) :( It was stressful for him to deal with the delays and the changed activities because of weather, etc. But, he is a trooper, and he did swimmingly. We're all recovered (even me, after too much Excedrin use on my trip) and we're back to normal life as we know it. Whatever normal is.
October 9, 2009
Adventures in the Rain
I picked Snow White and Sleeping Beauty up at school today. They were exhausted, hungry, wound up, and talking non-stop. And, you would have been,too, if you had, in the past two days, walked about eight miles (in the rain), visited a museum, a stadium, and an historic downtown, slept at the zoo on industrial carpeted cement floor(in the dolphin dome building, no less!), with one hundred other nine- and ten-year-olds. (Okay, so really it's the teachers who were truly exhausted. Bless their souls!)
I was sad to not go this year. When Cinderella went on the same field trip two years ago, I joined the other out-of-their-minds chaperons and slept for roughly seven minutes at the zoo. And, I had a great time. Truly. The kids were great, the trip was fun, and I loved watching Cinderella learn and have so much fun with her friends. This year, I knew that I just could not make it without intravenous Excedrin, so I opted to stay home and send the girls with competent, undrugged chaperons and our old digital camera.
They had a fabulous time. They told me all about it; who said what and where their favorite things were. Their favorite animals to visit were the sharks they could pet. They didn't have to tell me, though, I just knew. Probably because I'm their mom, and I just know that kind of stuff. Oh, and this sort of tipped me off:
Roughly 18% of their pictures were of the sharks. And five more were of the signs in the shark room. They also enjoyed the "cute sleeping polar bear who was the cutest thing ever" (they went on like that for a minute, but I'll spare you) and the penguins, as well as other interesting museum exhibits. 
Snow White even snapped a few "just rainy day pictures."
I am so glad they had a great time. And, equally glad that no one floated away or drowned in the torrential rain.
It was strange and quiet here with just Cinderella, King, and me. We went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, just to do something different with Cinderella. (And, different it was--have you ever tried to eat out on a gluten-free diet? We'll just say it was interesting, and different. Not bad. Just slow and unseasoned, which was fine, considering it wasn't brown rice and broccoli. I was very happy. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Now where were we?...) By this afternoon, I think even Cinderella was happy to have her sisters back with us. I think they were glad to be home, too. So glad, that it took almost an hour after they got home for them to find something to argue about. And if that wasn't a blessing that made the whole trip worth it, I don't know what is. Maybe we should send them somewhere else to sleep once a week...
I was sad to not go this year. When Cinderella went on the same field trip two years ago, I joined the other out-of-their-minds chaperons and slept for roughly seven minutes at the zoo. And, I had a great time. Truly. The kids were great, the trip was fun, and I loved watching Cinderella learn and have so much fun with her friends. This year, I knew that I just could not make it without intravenous Excedrin, so I opted to stay home and send the girls with competent, undrugged chaperons and our old digital camera.
They had a fabulous time. They told me all about it; who said what and where their favorite things were. Their favorite animals to visit were the sharks they could pet. They didn't have to tell me, though, I just knew. Probably because I'm their mom, and I just know that kind of stuff. Oh, and this sort of tipped me off:
Roughly 18% of their pictures were of the sharks. And five more were of the signs in the shark room. They also enjoyed the "cute sleeping polar bear who was the cutest thing ever" (they went on like that for a minute, but I'll spare you) and the penguins, as well as other interesting museum exhibits. 
Snow White even snapped a few "just rainy day pictures."
I am so glad they had a great time. And, equally glad that no one floated away or drowned in the torrential rain. It was strange and quiet here with just Cinderella, King, and me. We went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, just to do something different with Cinderella. (And, different it was--have you ever tried to eat out on a gluten-free diet? We'll just say it was interesting, and different. Not bad. Just slow and unseasoned, which was fine, considering it wasn't brown rice and broccoli. I was very happy. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Now where were we?...) By this afternoon, I think even Cinderella was happy to have her sisters back with us. I think they were glad to be home, too. So glad, that it took almost an hour after they got home for them to find something to argue about. And if that wasn't a blessing that made the whole trip worth it, I don't know what is. Maybe we should send them somewhere else to sleep once a week...
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