Wednesday, August 17, 2011

"After Care" Summary

Had a visit with my doctor and she's convinced that I'm actually suffering from migraines and not sinus headaches. She asked if there's a family history of migraines and I said no. After talking to my parents later in the day, I now know that I was mistaken. My father's mother apparently suffered from occasional migraines. Well. That was news to me and suddenly cast a very different light on my experience.

As for the impaired hearing, she thinks I may be dealing with a blockage in the inner ear which hopefully my prescription for Flonase will help to resolve. Nevertheless, she is recommending a hearing test in order to get more information.

So. Now we wait. We hope for no further migraines like the one I had in early July. And we hope that the Flonase clears the blockage and restores my hearing.

In the meantime, I'm happy to be feeling well physically otherwise. Did I mention I tried Zumba for the first time last week? And I've been going to yoga classes 2-3 times a week for the last few weeks. I'm determined to focus on myself and my health in an attempt to tamp down a rising anxiety about a life lived in two countries and two houses and packing and travel and making and keeping friends in two places and having no career in either place and feeling generally uncertain about how to make decisions and proceed with life from this place of confusion. But more on that later....

Sunday, August 7, 2011

We Interrupt Regular Programming...

to mention that the transition back to living in the USA has been the hardest this time. Gameboy and I spent several weeks coping with jet lag and then sinus issues. I had a sinus headache that rivaled anything I've ever experienced in terms of pain. I spent several days just before July 4th laying on the couch and vomitting every time I moved in part because the pain was so intense and in part because I was dizzy (that's the great part about sinus issues affecting your inner ear). I finally went to urgent care when I was dry heaving after 36 hours of vomitting etc. They gave me an IV drip for the dehydration and then some anti-nausea meds and some pain killers. It was an incredible relief. They sent me home with some anti-nausea and anti-dizziness meds for which I am grateful as once again I have a sinus headache that is nearly incapacitating.

One day I'll look back on this blog and wonder how I spent my summer and I'll know; that was the summer that it didn't feel like summer (our temperatures have just started to climb into the 70s despite a heat wave throughout the rest of the country) and I was so crippled with pain that I couldn't do a whole heck of lot. Unpacking has taken forever and the girls are left largely to entertain themselves indoors because walking even the 3 blocks to the park seems like a major effort.

I've scheduled an appointment with my physician and hope she has some answers.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Friends and Books

I had coffee with a friend a few days ago. I visited her without the kids. She lives a mere 3 blocks from our house. Being back in the USA I have had a chance to reconnect with some friends and it's been refreshing. It's nice not to have to journey for a minimum of an hour to visit with a friend (something that's pretty much a part of my life in Osaka). It's great to be able to stave off the loneliness that just seems to be a recent, perhaps growing part of my life in Japan despite my best efforts to work against it. I hope to come back and write more about this later, but for now this serves as a start.

Project Progeny recently photographed some of her bookshelves and I thought I'd snap a photo of my current bedside books as well. Clearly (per the photo) I've got friends and friendship on the brain in part because of posts by her and posts by Mel with regard to the topic, but also because I've been giving this a lot of thought in my life in the last year. Trying to figure out how to nurture friendships that only get the benefit of my physical presence 6 months out of the year isn't always easy.

My reading tastes are otherwise eclectic right now. I can't decide what to read; instead I keep sampling and reading bits and pieces of lots of different things. I'm working on Bad Monkeys, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Blackout, The Friendship Crisis and NurtureShock simultaneously. Each is interesting in its own way. Blackout is a slower read with a lot of historical fiction detail to it, while Bad Monkeys reads quickly and easily and feels like a movie. What are you reading?