Migraines And Moving Forward

The migraines are back...blah. Things have actually been pretty decent lately when it comes to headaches. Ever since I started the topamax the migraines have started to cool down to maybe 3 or 4 a month instead of the previous 6 to 8 per month. The neurologists says that the best I can hope for is to get them down to about 2 to 3 per month, which will work for me, but she says that unfortunately, I'll probably always have them and I'll just have to take the Relpax to get rid of them when I get one. But in the last week I've had 2! This will be the third. That sucks...I haven't had 3 headaches in a week in ages...probably about 6 months.

So I'm spending the night watching Lord of the Rings on TV even though I own the dvds and could watch them with without commercials, a topic that Deslily wrote about not too long ago. Funny how us silly humans do things like that...but then again, if you watch the movie on tv, you do get the wonderful entertainment of seeing commercials with little jingles that sing "viva viagra"......

I've been reading again lately which is good. I'm so glad to be out of that slump, and the books that I've been reading have been really good! I'm currently reading my first Tolstoy for the classics challenge (a very short Tolstoy) and his writing is incredible! If I'm feeling brave one of these days I'll attempt to tackle War and Peace or Anna Karenina, but that probably won't happen any time soon. There's a great 30 page introduction by Ronald Blythe before my version The Death of Ivan Ilyich that tells you all kinds of really cool things about Tolstoy. Strange guy, but cool guy.

The best news of the week is that I have 2 job interviews next week! One on Monday and one on Friday. The one on Monday is for a job that I've been wanting since before I graduated and I've applied for that job 3 times, so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for that one! They're both state counseling jobs, so while the pay wouldn't be the best, I would have excellent benefits and it would be good experience while I'm getting my licensure. At this point I don't really care that much about the money any more. Sure, it needs to be enough for me to live on, but I just want to be somewhere where I am happy and where I'm working with kids and making a difference in their lives. If I can find that, I'm cool.

Migraines, Migraines Go Away

No migraine today, thank God, but I did go to the neurologist this morning to have the meds switched up a bit. I've been taking Amitryptiline for awhile now for migraines. It's an antidepressant that's also used to treat migraines. It hasn't been working too well, but it has helped with my depression...go figure. So I think I'm going to stay on that medication in addition to the new one. The new one she prescribed is Topamax...anyone else try this one? It's a seizure medication, but hopefully will work in the migraine prevention area as well. It's got some brutal side effects which I hope won't come my way, although I wouldn't complain about the weight loss ;) I've found that Relpax works really well in getting rid of headaches. It's just so damn expensive ($30 co-pay for 6 pills!), but it's worth it.

As for the rest of the day, school is on the menu. blah...I'm going early though so that I can stop by the bookstore and get a diploma frame for my Master's which will be in my possession on May 19th :D

What a boring post...

Don't forget to get your name in for the Mirrormask giveaway. I'm picking the name tomorrow night!

(Good) Friday Favorites...New Orleans Style!

New Orleans is known as one of the biggest Catholic towns in the country. We're also known to use any excuse to party. Combine these two and you get a Good Friday tradition....a crawfish boil! Chris and Angela had their annual crawfish boil this afternoon and it was perfect. The weather has been absolutely beautiful here today. They boiled about 120 pounds of crawfish of which I probably ate about 10. Add to that 4 beers (a must have with crawfish) and it was quite an enjoyable afternoon. Sunny skies, a cool breeze, lots of friends and family (that I didn't know) and tons of good food. Quite a nice afternoon.

Managed to have my migraine carry on into another day. Work was excruciating today as there was lots of patients yelling. I think patients tend to get more upset around holidays which makes sense. Unfortunately, many of them will spend their Easter in the hospital, away from their families. So I guess I can understand the yelling and screaming and kicking. But understanding only does so much. It doesn't help my migraine. But I found something that does! After discovering so many others out there with migraines through my blog I hope to have a helpful tip for everyone....Head On Migraine! I'm sure we've all heard of Head On (apply directly to the forehead). Well this is one specifically for migraines and it worked for me today when my prescription stuff didn't. It looks like a giant tube of chapstick. You literally apply it directly to your forehead. Now I don't know if there's medication in it, but it works. It sort of gives you this cold, tingly feeling like you have ice on your forehead. That feeling distracts your brain from the pain. But even after the tingly feeling wore off, my headache was gone! And the best thing is, you can't overdose on it...you can apply it as much as is needed. So migraine sufferers, try this out! It's one of the best 8 dollars you'll spend.

Hope everyone else has had a nice Good Friday and that you continue to have an enjoyable Easter weekend!

Migraines Pt. 2, A New Blog, Alice Poppets

The migraines have returned, so this will be a short post. I just want these to go away. Doctors appointment on the 30th of this month, so hopefully we can come up with a better solution then. I ended up leaving work early today which really wasn't such a bad thing. I got all of my groups done this morning and had my last family session at 1. So I would've just been twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the day.

There's a new edition to the blogroll and this one is very special to me. The blog's name is Girl Come Undone and it is authored by the same Megan that you hear me talk about on here. Me and Megan have quite a history as can be seen on this previous post. You can look forward to some excellent writing from her on all things interesting. She's a wonderful artist and a big fan of Dave McKean and Brian Froud. Very creative type of person. Enjoy!

Edit: One more thing! I just found the cutest damn things on Lisa Snellings-Clark's blog. Alice in Wonderland poppets!!!

Migraines, Books, and Poppets

I detest migraines. I can't wait until my next neurologist appointment so that I can see about trying some new meds. The ones I'm on now are just not working. I'm still getting migraines every 4-5 days and they're just plain annoying. I'm very unpleasant to be around when I have one and am known to snap at people and not answer my cell phone while my head is throbbing. Sorry Jroy. I need something to make these go away. My meds work, but they take about an hour and a half to kick in. So for now, I'll just blog away and then crash in bed until it goes away so that I can read. Reading is impossible with a migraine. They take away my only true love :(

Speaking of reading...After my oh so long 3 hour work shift tonight, I decided to go to Barnes and Noble and peruse the aisles while having a coffee. I ended up buying the rest of my challenge books. All except Grendel because I couldn't remember who wrote it. Now that I am home, I see that it is in fact John Gardner who wrote it. Grendel is a retelling of Beowulf through the monster's eyes from what I understand. I've never read Beowulf, but am hoping that I can make it through this one without doing so. I would like to read Beowulf eventually though since I know there is a screenplay written by Neil Gaiman that is currently being made into a movie.

So for the banned books challenge, I bought 3 of the 4 remaining books: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Best of John Bellairs which contains The Figure in the Shadows. The Figure in the Shadows is the second in a three book series and this book just happened to have the whole series for $9.99. So I'll likely be reading that whole series for the challenge. The reason I picked this book is because there are plenty of Edward Gorey illustrations in the book. Edward Gorey makes anything good :)

And I also bought a copy of Midsummer Night's Dream for the Once Upon a Time challenge. There were about 100 versions of this book at B&N, but this one looked best to me. I was surprised that I didn't already own a copy of this, but alas, I did not. It will be nice to reread this one.

Thank God for the Barnes and Noble member program! I only saved about $5 tonight, but those $5 savings definitely add up.My two little red poppets wanted to send greetings to Elaine's little red poppets in the UK, so I allowed them to and took their photograph with all of my new books. They say "allo!"

We planted a vegetable garden recently which makes me very happy. I love growing veggies. I'll take some pictures when they start growing veggies. We also got a Bougainvillea vine that can weave throughout the patio covering. Looking forward to that as well.

Home from the interview

Today was the interview for the guidance counselor position, and I think it went really well! It's a little different than normal counseling, but I knew that going into it. Alot of this job involves scheduling classes with the students, keeping them up to date on TOPS, assessments, etc. but it also includes therapeutic work as needed with both the students and the parents. I was told that it's important to interact with the kids and go to football games and such, and that would be no problem for me. Gives me an excuse to be a kid again.

The most promising thing is that she said she's looking for someone with experience in the clinical stuff, pertaining to specific disorders. This is perfect because I'm fresh out of school with all kinds of clinical knowledge. She was excited about that and said that I could give a few pointers to the veterans over there. She also liked that I'm exposed to the different medications used to treat disorders, because they don't know alot about all of that. She said that she wants to start doing some groups at the school and liked that I had experience with that too. So needless to say, she was excited that I have the "fresh out of school" perspective. She also liked that I had an insider's perspective on how bad adolescence can get. I met with the principal and assistant principal as well, both of whom remembered me and said that they were glad to see me.

Pretty easy interview. Not as much of a problem as I thought I would have. So now I have to wait until next week to do the second interview. She said she'll "definitely be calling me soon," which sounds promising. I find about about the pay, etc. at the next step. I have a specific number in my head and they need to hit that. Oh! She's also an LPC supervisor, so I can get my LPC through her which rocks. That can cost a pretty penny. All in all, I'm excited and it will be nice to have summers off.

In the meantime, I have a splitting migraine. I took my meds, just waiting for them to kick in. So if you are awaiting a phone call from me *cough*jroy*cough* I'll call you as soon as this damn headache goes away.