So I just celebrated 1 month of working as a nurse for a doctor in a nephrology office. I am now in a doctor's office and away from the hospital!!!! This means several things - all good for my headaches.
1. Less stress. Of course the job still has stress, and a new job certainly does, but the high stress of a medical floor juggling 5+ severely ill patients was just a wee little much.
2. I get to pee!!!! While I'm sort of being funny, I'm sort of not either. Before, work would be so intense and busy, that I'd be lucky to pee once during my lunch break for the entire 12 hour shift. Keeping hydrated was a joke. I NEVER even finished a single bottle of water as I choked my lunch down. Now, I drink several bottles of water a day. Any migrainer knows that a HUGE trigger to headaches is hydration.
3. Better hours & more sleep! I get to see my kids get on the school bus each morning and I get to wear sunglasses when I drive home every day. I get 8+ hours of sleep each night now (and lack of sleep is just another one of those wretched migraine triggers.)
I have noticed that I'm feeling much better and I've even had a coupe of people tell me that I look like I'm feeling better. My only complaint is that at the end of the day, I feel so incredibly tired. Almost enough to where I'm wondering if I'm anemic. I've also noticed several unexplained bruises on my legs and my eyes look a little pink?
However, I think I'll begin a multi-vitamin and bulking up the iron in my diet to see if I notice an improvement. Also, I'd like to start walking a couple times a week. I just don't want to OVER do it, because over-exertion seems to also be a trigger for me. Shesh! Perhaps I should live in a bubble??? Nah! I'm getting this thing figured out. (; Soon, I'll be a migraine master. LOL
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Well, I know where I can point my finger...
I don't remember exactly when it was, but I remember hearing about the water contamination at Camp Lejeune. This was a base that I lived as a young child for maybe a year or so in the mid '80's, as my Papi was a Marine.
I remember half listening to the information about the contamination and half heartedly asking my Papi questions about our time living there, but the one or two articles that I read mainly spoke of the victims as those that developed cancer, and largely breast cancer at that. Because neither of these applied to me, I just shoved this information in the back of my mind.
And then my husband, who currently subscribes to a newspaper for servicemen, brought me an article to read. And things changed.
The article spoke of just how long the water contamination had gone on, from the early '50's - the mid- late '80's, and how the contamination was due to chemicals from a nearby dry cleaners AND a really bad gas spill that affected the water supply. This would have affected tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. The symptoms that the victims would suffer included various cancers; breast, uterine, bladder, brain, etc. as well as other tumors throughout the body. The tricky part is that many of those affected would not see these manifestations for YEARS after they moved away, causing pinpointing the offending agent very difficult if not impossible.
The part that really caught my attention, was a young man was mentioned in the article with the exact same tumor as me.
I have always wondered what caused my tumor, and have often asked, fearing that my children would be at risk for developing the abnormal cells in their brains as well. Now, I guess I know.
I remember half listening to the information about the contamination and half heartedly asking my Papi questions about our time living there, but the one or two articles that I read mainly spoke of the victims as those that developed cancer, and largely breast cancer at that. Because neither of these applied to me, I just shoved this information in the back of my mind.
And then my husband, who currently subscribes to a newspaper for servicemen, brought me an article to read. And things changed.
The article spoke of just how long the water contamination had gone on, from the early '50's - the mid- late '80's, and how the contamination was due to chemicals from a nearby dry cleaners AND a really bad gas spill that affected the water supply. This would have affected tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. The symptoms that the victims would suffer included various cancers; breast, uterine, bladder, brain, etc. as well as other tumors throughout the body. The tricky part is that many of those affected would not see these manifestations for YEARS after they moved away, causing pinpointing the offending agent very difficult if not impossible.
The part that really caught my attention, was a young man was mentioned in the article with the exact same tumor as me.
I have always wondered what caused my tumor, and have often asked, fearing that my children would be at risk for developing the abnormal cells in their brains as well. Now, I guess I know.
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