Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Bugs, Headaches and a Trip

The good thin about having a weed/flower garden is that the bugs are happy.  I have seen more than one praying mantis out there ( I like bugs that eat other bugs).  Today when I went out to grab the paper this one was happily munching on a caterpillar on the side walk.  It was too good an opportunity to pass up so I want and grabbed the camera,  so much easier to see on the sidewalk than on the green plants.

I have had several dragonflies again this summer and say a really cool moth this morning as well, took a photo of it too.
I went to the Doctor yesterday and so we are now going to try to do something about them.  The first order of business is to break the current cycle of pain since we can't do much about my other headaches when I am like this.  I think I surprised her when I said that I had a headache for 5 1/2 weeks and yes a headache as in 24/7.  So not normal.  We are starting with a decongestant and a couple of days of oral steroids and no over the counter pain killers.  I am also going to Physical therapy starting Sept 2nd.  The headaches have caused neck and shoulder stress which can be making the headache worse or feeding into the cycle.  She thinks rebounds are part of the problem as well (thus the no pain killers).  

Over all she thinks that I probably have a combination of Migraines and Tension headaches and we are going to work on trying to add to my list of known triggers.  She will probably try me on other drugs to help once we get this one licked.  Most headache meds don't work when you are this far into them.  Hopefully all this will help and then we will be able to try other things to help with the other headaches.  Heck I would be happy if I never had the week + headaches any more.  

The much more upbeat news is that tomorrow I head north to King of Prussia (Philly) for the Bead Fest.  I will get to spend time with Tony and Roma,  take 2 classes and go bead shopping,  yeah!!!!!   It should be lots of fun,  just have to not spend all of Wayne's hard earned money especially since he is getting close to retirement.

Speaking of the light of my life,  he got the extension papers so he will be Retired on Active duty form Jan 1- March 31st.  Once he gets home from Iraq sometime in October he will go into job hunting mode.  For work he will have post-deployment stuff as well as all of the retirement stuff to do.  He thinks he will be able to go on terminal leave as early as December 1 since he isn't planning on taking time off when he gets home since he wants to get right on the job search.  Having been on deployment so much in the last year+ has had the advantage that he has more leave (vacation days) on the books that he won't lose.  Add in house-hunting, job-hunting and other days and it looks like around 4 months,  not bad.  He is doing good and keeping busy as always,  he calls when he has time and e-mails me almost everyday.  His arm is getting better and with some light weights he is getting more of the strength back in it.  

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