Week-Long Headache

Last Monday night, I developed a nasty headache. A sense of nausea came along with it — it felt like motion-sickness in my head, not like food-poisioning in my stomach. I went to bed, hoping to sleep it off.

But it didn’t go away Tuesday or Wednesday, even though I stayed home and rested. So Wednesday I went to one of those drop-in medical clinics. The doctor wasn't exactly sure what's going on. Her best guess was that it might be my first migraine. (Apparently only some migraine-suffers are sensitive to light and sound, which I didn’t know. Specific migraine symptoms are supposedly rather individual.)

But it might something else. Helpful, those doctors are. :( (As if humans are complex or something! Psh!) She said there's a stomach flu going around that does have headache and nausea as symptoms, but my stomach feels and sounds fine. (As I said above, the nausea feels located in my head, not my stomach.) She said it could be low thyroid. She said it could be related to my other weird neurological thing. They took some blood samples (botching up my elbow all bruisy while they were at it) to rule out non-migraine causes. Update, 4 PM: The blood work all came back normal. So "migraine" remains the most likely diagnosis.

The doctor prescribed some Vicodin for the pain, which I took on Thursday. Unfortunately, it makes the nausea worse. I'd rather have a headache than worse nausea, so I stopped taking them.

Now that I've had this headache and nausea for a week, I've noticed patterns. The headache is worse in the morning, right after waking up. The nausea seems motion-sensitive: I inevitably feel sick in a car, and just walking or pacing can bring it on, too. Update, 4 PM: Rapidly scrolling text also triggers it. Awesome! Sitting still makes the nausea go away and lets the headache recede to mostly-ignorable levels. If I sit still long enough, I feel pretty much normal. So I've found coping strategies. But it really should just go away, dammit! :(

Month and a Half of Doing Very Little

Lunch in the Backyard

What's been going on since I last posted a month and a half ago? Well, Forrest was away in California visiting his family, backpacking, and road-tripping it up. While he was gone, my days mostly consisted of work, bookstores, Battlestar Galactica, and more bookstores. I sure am exciting when left to my own devices! ;)

The weather was extremely nice while Forrest was gone, though. (He's brought the rain back with him, but I'll forgive him since I'm glad he's finally home. :)) But while the sunny not-too-hot weather lasted, I did try to enjoy it a little. For instance, I fixed myself lunch (that is, I heated up some frozen Trader Joe's food) and ate it in the backyard while reading a book. Very pleasant afternoon, that was.

Amy Finally Killed My Spider Plant

In less good news, my cat Amy finally killed my spider plant. A friend from work had given me a cutting of his spider plant a while back. I was proud of myself for not having killed it yet despite weeks on end of neglect, followed by guilt-ridden waterings. ;) Then I started noticing that its leaves had little punctures in them. Little cat-tooth-sized punctures. But I never caught either cat in the act.

Then one night, I was woken up around 3 AM by this great crashing, breaking sound. I jumped out of bed to see what the cats had broken this time. (They already have one ex-vase to their credit.) Amy was slinking out of the kitchen, and in the sink was the broken terra cotta pot that had held my spider plant.

The next morning, I transplanted it to the backyard. I haven't checked on it since then, so it's probably very dead by now. :(

Too Much Knotweed

I don't love all plants, though. For instance, knotweed must die. Japanese knotweed is a nasty, nasty invasive that grows on our neighbor's property and, along with their bamboo, sneaks under the fence and sprouts up all over our yard. It can grow 1 foot per week, and that's bushy too, not just straight up! It's Bad Times™.

So I spent some time hacking it all down. The photo is a pile from one afternoon's murderous knotweed rampage. Muahaha!

Strawberries on the Vine

Back to good plants. Like strawberries. Everybody likes strawberries! Last year, some critter was liking our strawberries, unfortunately. Just as the berries started to turn red, but before they were actually ripe enough for people to eat, something would munch holes in them and let the rest rot. So we didn't get to eat any of last year's crop.

We never did find out if the culprit was slugs or birds or what. In any case, they seem to be ignoring this year's strawberries. Yay! :) So we've enjoyed the handful of strawberries that the plants have produced so far. They're small but very flavorful.

Seattle Skyline from Blake Island

Finally, two weeks ago my team at work went out to Blake Island on a manager's 50' boat, the Henry Young, as a morale event. I have a whole set of photos from the trip.