The Healing Power of Water

Hey everybody, give me a big round of applause! I haven't been drinking my necessary 80oz's of water for the past week and as a result, have given myself a migraine everyday for the past 5 days!

Thank you, thank you! I couldn't have done it without my extreme laziness, my constant forgetting my water cup at work and at home, and especially not without my desperate need to drink coffee when its cold outside.

/end sarcasm.

WARNING: this post contains talk about poo

Dear God in Heaven, what I'd give to be regular right about now! I think its been a good 10 days since I've had a nice solid poo come out of me. Yeah, its a gross topic but hell, its a necessary thing to do everyday. Everybody's gotta poo, and when you don't you get gassy, cramps, irritable, acne, bloated, and just an overall feeling of ickiness.

Part of the problem is my diet, I'll admit it. I don't eat very well; I'm a junk food junkie and have one hell of a time remembering that I'm supposed to eat veggies and fruit, although I don't hate them (unlike my boyfriend, good god you should have seen the performance he put on when i tried to get him to eat peas!). The bigger problem, however, is the Verapamil I take for the migraines. One side effect is constipation and there are times, like right now for instance, where it is just too damn much to handle.

I am miserable :(

Its not so much the fact that I'm not going #2 regularly, as much as it is that this is such an embarrassing problem and one that I am ashamed to tell my boyfriend about. This past Friday was probably the worst day thus far in the Constipation Saga; in an effort to FORCE it all out of me, I drank a cup of this tea my acupuncturist gave me thats supposed to get things moving PLUS two cups of strong coffee but it didn't do much until the very end of the day. All of a sudden, things were screaming to get out of me. I was cramping so bad I was literally running to the bathroom, and thank goodness nobody else was in there to hear what went on. Lets just say it wasn't pretty, and it left me really upset and in a lot of pain still. I knew me and my guy had plans to go to the movies later that night, and when I left work that day I was praying he hadn't gone to pick up the tickets early as I was no longer in the mood for a movie. No such luck. I've never been so bummed about a sweet gesture in my life. I actually went and locked myself in the bathroom and cried, thinking about how I was gonna make it through this movie without embarrassing myself in front of my perfect boyfriend, who in two years of being together has yet to even accidentally fart in front of me.

I dunno, I guess the real REAL problem leads back to the migraines in the first place, because if I didn't have the migraines I wouldn't be taking the Verapamil, and if I wasn't taking the Verapamil I wouldn't be so fiercely constipated right now, and if I wasn't so fiercely constipated I wouldn't be so nervous to be around my boyfriend. Maybe its stupid in the first place to be so worried about appearances at this point, considering that we live together, but I'm so not used to being in the position I feel that I'm in sometimes in this relationship. Don't get me wrong, in no way does my guy make me feel like I do; I do it all to myself 100%. But honestly, sometimes I feel as though I'm the "weak" one, I'm the "gross" one, I'm the "loser", all because of medical and health issues. The migraine problems make me feel weak, the side effects from the pills can make me feel gross, and the both of them combined can make me feel like a HUGE loser.

this is some information that would have been useful to me YESTERDAY!!!

Well, the roadtrip was hilarious, the wedding was fabulous, the bride was beautiful, the groom cried (which made me cry a little too!), the weather was a bit chilly, my boyfriend was dashingly handsome in his tux, and best of all, I didn't trip walking up the aisle and make an ass out of myself! :) Here's me and my guy looking amazing together:

I was pretty relieved that the guys who rode with us got laid at the wedding (well, not literally but you know what I mean), bc its pretty much all they talked about on the way down there and I would have hated to hear all the bitching on the way back had it NOT happened lol. I was nervous about meeting my guy's whole family for the first time but everyone was really warm and welcoming, not to mention more focused on the wedding rather than anything else so WHEW! And thank goodness I only had to endure a few comments of "soooo....when are you two getting married? Hehehe!" I'm still at that stage in life where its an almost knee-jerk reaction to scream "NEVER!!!" and run in the opposite direction when I'm asked that question, but I'm working on a more diplomatic response, I swear.

Anyhoo, I got a rather nasty surprise the other day when I went to go pick up some pills at the pharmacy. For some retarded reason, my insurance wouldn't refill my birth control until Monday even though I ran out of it on Saturday. I had tried to pick up the refill before we left on the trip so I wouldn't miss any pills since I take them continuously, meaning I skip the sugar pills and go straight into a new pack. I've explained this to the insurance before, and so has my doctor, but this time I was just like "Fuck it" and said that I would be back on Monday to get them. When I did go back, there was a new pharmacist I hadn't seen before and I guess he pays more attention to what he's doling out to people because the girl ringing me up had to bring him up to talk to me for a second. Apparently, neither of my doctors and none of the other pharmacists thought it all that important to let me know that I should NOT take my birth control at the same time as I take my Topamax, as the Topamax decreases the effectiveness of the Pill. Let me just add that I've been taking both these pills at the same time for the past, oh I don't know, about 2-3 months.

I pretty much looked just like this when the pharmacist dropped that bomb on me:

I mean, REALLY! How the fuck does that kind of information just slip on by for so long?! Granted, I should have read the information packet that came with the Topamax more closely but thats some pretty damn serious stuff right there. I'm putting a lot of trust in these doctors and pharmacists to give me as much knowledge as possible about these meds, and then its like "Oops, we forgot to tell you that this medication may cause your birth control to completely fail; SOWEE!!!" Ugh! I HIGHLY doubt I'm preggers but I'm a worrier to the extreme so I'm going to pickup a pregnancy test today at lunch just to make sure. How embarrassing if I were to be one of those women who has no idea she's knocked up until she's giving birth.

I kinda want to call and yell at my doctors, but honestly I just don't have the energy to. I don't really like my gyno all that much to begin with, and as of late have been seriously thinking of switching my well-woman care over to a midwife center. I could call my neurologist and complain, but I think the Topamax is really starting to do its thing and I'm not to keen on stopping it right now only to have to start something else, ya know? The pharmacist said to just space out the time between the pills, so now I have to start taking my BC at like 2pm which is pretty weird. I might talk to the gyno anyways and see if there's another kind of BC I could get on that wouldn't be such a pain in the ass.

God, what a bitch it is to have to rearrange so many things all because of these stupid ass migraines.

oh shit i broke a nail!

No, really. I did. Well, not all the way but I can see the crack starting and I desperately need these babies to last me until the end of this Saturday. After that, I really don't care if they all break off. Ok, thats a lie, I do care lol.

I have to admit, I'm in a FABULOUS mood this morning :) This past week has yielded only 2 migraines and any time that happens it makes me a very happy lady! People here at work ask me everyday how I'm feeling and its kinda funny (and slightly annoying) how they seem to think the migraines are due to only one thing or another. In reality, controlling them has to do with a large number of variables working together: acupuncture, diet, exercise, sleep, stress level, muscle tension, pills, etc. This past week, everything was working together harmoniously and I'm very thankful for it.

This weekend was hella busy, and I was pretty nervous about getting migraines (yes, plural) on Saturday. I had a TON of errands and homework to do before heading out that night for my boyfriend's sister's bachelorette party that night. Usually when things are that hectic, my brain is 7 steps ahead of my body, and I'm very easily overwhelmed by a situation which often leads to a stress migraine. Its not uncommon to find myself turning the radio down and giving myself a quick reality check to calm down and focus on one thing at a time.

One thing thats a big stress though about going out these days is the pressure of social drinking. I've never really been a big drinker; I kinda got more into it for a while after I turned 21, but I never truly acquired a taste for alcohol. When we'd go out to bars and clubs though, of course I'd have drinks and shots. It makes the night more fun, it helps you fit in with everybody else, and if the DJ sucks it makes the music selection way more tolerable. The last time I had a drink/got drunk was back in August when my boyfriend and I were on vacation in Vegas. I had a great time of course, and we had some spectacular drunk sex, but the resulting hangover and migraine were just not worth it in my opinion. I was so miserable that I had to spend the entire last day of our vacation in bed. Even so, Saturday night was really really hard on me; I don't think I've ever wanted a drink so badly in my whole life. Surrounded by 15 girls, drunk off their asses and having the time of their lives, I felt like a desperate recovering alcoholic. I must have turned down 4 or 5 offers for drinks in that first hour alone. Have you ever tried having fun at a club when you're not drunk? SNOOZEFEST! LOL! j/k ;)

Instead, I turned to Redbulls partially to give me energy to dance and have a good time, but also to give me something to hold and drink besides water so I didn't look like such a loser. Remember what I said though about Topamax changing my tastebuds?

See that green part back there labeled "bitter"? That, my friends, is where I taste ALL carbonated beverages now. Every. Single. Last. One of them. And its not just that they're bitter tasting, they're also very dry too. And crumbly. Does that make sense? Have you ever washed a sweater so many times that the fabric starts to pill up, so you get these little balls of fluff all over that you find yourself picking off anytime you wear it? Okay, well imagine drinking something thats made up of bitter, dry, little balls of fluff, and thats what those Redbulls tasted like to me all night. I think I drank 3 of them lol. They certainly helped keep the pep up all night, but I'm no longer used to drinking them so when we finally left the club my whole face was vibrating from all the energy boosting crap in them.



I did have a great time though, and it was HILARIOUS to be sober and see how many girls drink themselves sick at clubs. Its something I never noticed when I was drunk myself, probably because I was one of the sick girls too. The downside though is you really start to notice how rank the bathroom smells around 1am. I should have peed before we left the club, but I just couldn't force myself to go back in there. Ladies, for the love of god, educate yourself on how alcohol is metabolized in your systems! You can't drink as much as the guys can, so just get over it already. Anyhoo, I'm waiting on some pics of Saturday night to be sent to me so as soon as I get those, I'll post them up. This week is, hopefully, going to be a quick week since we leave Friday morning to drive to Corpus for this wedding. Yay for roadtrips!

Barooo! Halloween is over :(

Ew, its Monday again.

This weekend was half awesome, half not so awesome. Friday, as you know, I had that migraine but it went away with a pill and a lunchtime nap. After all that ish, I was one of the people at work who won in the costume contest so I scored a $50 gc to Target. Sweeeeeet! I was a soccer player from Hell:

Free money in my pocket feels like fire, so of course I had to spend that gc right away lol! I bought this silly kitty jungle gym for Tinka thats got three tiers of fun to it, and the 8th season of The Simpsons because its got one of my favorite Treehouses of Horror on it (you know, the one where Lisa does that Science Fair project growing mold and she accidentally creates life when she zaps the petri dish with static electricity? yeah, i freakin LOVE that one!).

Anyhoo, I woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty fuzzy-headed, which is never a good sign. Yes, it was because I hung out with MJ the night before and yes, I do realize now that I need to tell her to go home at least a few hours before I hit the sack at night. I went to acupuncture and also realized that I hadn't had any treatment for migraines in about three weeks, and that probably had a lot to do with all the bs from last week so I won't be skipping out on any appointments from now on. The doc said that its important to keep coming even when you feel better because it just makes sure that the energies are continuing to flow the way they should be. Makes sense, and when I stood up after the acupunture and acupressure I did feel a lot of tension and pressure trickle out of my neck and sinuses. I always feel like such a goob when the doctor is right.

Even with the acupunture appointment, the migraine didn't completely dissipate and I did wind up having to take yet another Imitrex later on in the day. I was pretty upset about it, but what else could I do? I lead a pretty busy life, and I can't always stop to lie down, pull the shades, take a nap, etc. etc. etc. everytime a migraine hits. Mostly what I was upset about was the number of Imitrex I'd already taken that week, bc its dangerous to start down the path of rebound headaches. Rebound headaches are what landed me in the hospital a couple months ago, and its really not something I'm wanting to do again anytime soon. The Imitrex did its thing, and I was able to get some good rest and relaxation in before heading out to Denton to be transformed into this:

I was a witch :) Luxe did an awesome job on the makeup, but I'm sorry to say that it itched like crazy and halfway through the night a lot of it had been scratched off inadvertently. Next year, I'll remember to MOISTURIZE beforehand.