I wish I hated red wine and chocolate.
I wish I loved that feeling that my lungs were going to explode.
I wish I were independently wealthy and could work only when I wanted to.
I wish my son’s head didn’t hurt.
I don’t. I don’t. I am not. And our quest for the headache cure still continues. So my blog has gathered dust, and, honestly, right now, I am cool with that. I have to be.
You see, I have this wonderful, loving family; a good but crazy job; a desire to do more and be more; and such limited time.
So, for now, I’m sneaking in workouts where I can; doing research via audio books and YouTube videos while I clean the house; eking out a plot for my book oh so slowly; and still searching for that miracle cure.
All in small steps.
Small steps, I figure, are better than nothing, and, sometimes, they are all you can do.
Three weeks in, and my goals are dropping the way I wish my pounds would.
My focus has really shifted to goals three and six: juggling that crazy workload and finding a solution to my son’s headache.
I guess it is time I wrote a little bit about this. Fixing his pain has become a fixation.
What We Know
His headache seems like it is primarily a tension headache, which sometimes works its way into a migraine. It starts at the base of his skull and radiates outward. Oh, and his muscles in his shoulders and neck are really, really tight.
He’s had a CT scan, which has shown nothing.
What We Have Done
He’s been to PT, massage therapists, a osteopath and an acupuncturist. We’ve tried ibuprofen, Tylenol, Aleve, riboflavin, vitamin D, co-enzyme Q10, feverfew, magnesium, hot baths with Epsom salts, ice packs, heating pads and I’m sure there are few other things I’ve forgotten. We’ve even tried Tylenol with codeine. I’ve made sure he stays hydrated. I’ve had him do restorative yoga, meditate and rub his pressure points. He’s in cross-country so he gets exercise nearly every day.
We took him to a neurologist, who made us wait two months only to have us attend a lecture on headaches and then send us back to our primary care physician. (Thank you very much.)
Most recently, we’ve tried chiropractic. The doctor said his spine was seriously out of alignment. He showed me how one leg was longer than the other. He clicked and pushed and last time said the adjustment was starting to hold. Unfortunately, however, my son still has his headache – the same headache he’s had every minute of every day since about April.
Nothing we’ve done has done anything but knock it down a notch or two for a few hours.
My son says he’s depressed and asked me if I thought that could be causing it. I told him it could be, but that I thought he was probably depressed because he had a headache. Nonetheless, I’ll take him to a therapist, too, maybe she can help him to relax, which could impact his headache.
What’s Next
I’m running out of things to try.
It could be food, but we don’t see any corresponding spikes in pain according to what he eats, and most of the foods that would cause headache he doesn’t eat – except cheese. How can I take cheese away from my kid? I don’t know, but I will if it helps him.
One biggie is braces. He had them put on about a month before the pain started. We could take them off and see if the headache goes away. Then, I’m not sure what. He has too many too big teeth for his mouth. But at least he would be pain-free. (Oh, the expense of it all.)
We also haven’t tried any of the more serious meds. They have side effects including rare interaction with heart rhythm, problems voiding, sedation and dizziness – I really didn’t want to go there, but maybe we’ll have to.
Thursday we’ll see his pediatrician again. We’ll see what he suggests, but I just want my kid to stop hurting.
Those goals again:
1. Get fit … (Get what?)
2. And blog about it … (Well, here’s an entry.)
3. While I juggle the crazy workload that at the moment seems to be crashing down around me … (Still trying.)
4. And get my kids to eat healthily … (Today was pretty good. I’m realizing, though, that I should also have a goal that is just spending time with my kids. That’s real.)
5. And write that novel I’ve been wanting to write … (I wrote a page today. Only 300-some pages to go. Yay.)
6. And find a solution to my son’s headache? (See above.)
I am tired and sweaty and … well … feeling great.
The good thing about blogging is that it forces me to think about fitness regularly, and, eventually, I get so tired of my own excuses that there is nothing left to do but just get to it.
This evening I saw a narrow window of opportunity – what with one kid at guitar lessons and another playing basketball, and I climbed on our only somewhat functional treadmill. (Only two buttons work, but, as it turns out, those two are all that I need. If only they worked all the time.)
Anyway, today was my first run in what must be months. I didn’t go far. I didn’t go fast. But I went, and my somewhat beat-up old body is thanking me, and even begging me to do that again tomorrow.
Who knew? Maybe I might just get better at this fitness stuff yet. Maybe.
Short entry tonight. I’m going to try to tackle some other goals now.
Day three: New hope? A false dream?
A friend just tweeted me about a once-a-week workout routine from Strength Science Lab at the University of Florida (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/lifestyle/health/new-1-workout-a-week-routine-maximizes-exercise).
Apparently, the idea behind it is that you can lower what is too heavy to lift. So these machines maximize weight on the way down, minimize it on the way up and provide a super-serous workout.
A once-a-week workout. I could manage that. I wonder where I can get a hold of machines like that in Plattsburgh, though.
On the headache front
Today was an acupuncture day for my son. I love taking him to these. I can almost see part of the headache dissolving on his face.
He comes back to life after these appointments.
It just knocks his headache down a point or two and only for an evening, but that is enough for me to see him — my Ben — the way I remember him being before the headache set in.
Over the next few days, I’d like to bombard him with more efforts to relax his neck and shoulders. (That’s where the pain seems to emanate from.)
I did last week. Acupuncture Thursday; massage Friday; restorative yoga Saturday. And it helped, but only by slight degrees and nothing lasted. Now this weekend, he’s going camping, so I can’t plan anything.
Next week, however? The chiropractor. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he may have a solution.
Those goals again:
“You haul 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.”– Ernie Ford, “Sixteen Tons”
Day two of my newer quest, and, alas, I’m already deferring my workout, my writing and even my quest for a cure to my son’s headache for another day.
See, it’s been a day of heavy lifting, but of the wrong sort. It’s been the sort of day when you write a word, get a phone call, write a second word, get another phone call, write a third word, get a … well, you get the picture.
And one of those phone calls, the one I’d been waiting and waiting to get, was interrupted by a fire alarm.
If work were a treadmill, it would have been on high today – so high that no matter how fast I ran, I would have fallen on my bum.
Now …
after disciplining one son for a school prank …
(I’m trying to decide the full extent of that punishment. No friends over, community service, reading to the elderly, cleaning our floors with a toothbrush?)
and sending the other to take a bath in Epsom salts …
(Please let it relax his muscles and ease his headache, just a little. Please. Please. Please?)
and tucking them in …
I am climbing on that virtual treadmill again, doing some work and hoping, against hope, that I won’t fall on my bum again tomorrow.
And, maybe tomorrow, I’ll finally climb back on our real treadmill.
Those goals again:
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