So. I am awake. Considering the night I had, that is saying quite a bit.
I went to bed with a headache that I’d been having for a day and a half. I blame the Boy Scouts. See, I got myself a nice little caffeine addiction back when a nice, cold glass of Coca Cola was the perfect thing to ease my pregnancy nausea. If I was drinking Coke, you knew I was nauseated. And since I was nauseated all day, every day until late May, well…you get the point.
So now I need 2 glasses of Coke a day or I’ll get a headache. I don’t get normal headaches, either. I get these not-quite-migraine things that are cured by a dose of Extra Strength Excedrin plus one Coke. Even in my normal, not pregnant and addicted to caffeine state, if I get a headache, it’s that combination of aspirin, aceteminaphin, and caffeine that works. But I can’t have aspirin while pregnant, so I try to tough out the pain and have 2 Cokes a day. Purely preventative, of course.
But on Sunday, the moms of Boo’s Boy Scout Troop had a little get together of wine and appetizers. The only things offered to drink were water and booze, so I drank water. We’ve got really good tasting water here, right out of the tap, so I wasn’t suffering. Yet. But by the time I got home, it was much to late for me to be drinking caffeine, even though I could already feel the headache creeping up.
The next day I tried to shake my headache. I took a 2 hour nap. I drank my soda. I kept otherwise well hydrated with cool and tasty mountain water. By the end of the day I was hurting. I went to bed, hoping I’d be better by morning.
I slept like a rock until 3:00 am. Then I was awake and my head still hurt. Plus I had a stuffy nose.
My nose has been giving me a hard time for about 3 weeks, when we had built in bookshelves installed. Which you don’t know about, because I haven’t mentioned it yet. I think the sawdust bothered my nose, which made me feel like I was right on the edge of a sneeze all day. Then it started to hurt. It hurt so badly that I actually googled “my nose hurts on the inside.” The general wisdom was to swab it with vaseline, which I have to admit helps a lot. But my nose still seems to go from hurting, to congested as it tries to lubricate itself, to normal and back again.
Last night it was in its super-congested/hurty phase.
So I lay there, wide awake, head pounding, nose congested, mouth open trying to breathe. I got up and walked around, trying to “reset” myself. That attracted the cats to my room. I propped myself up, hoping a change of position would clear my nose. Nope. I avoided looking at the clock. I thought about Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. I tried not think about what it was like to know you were about to have your head lopped off.
I got up to blow my nose, which caused the cats to follow me into the bathroom as my personal escorts. One cat rubbed my legs while I swabbed my nose in the dark. The other explored the plants around the bathtub.
I went back to bed. The cat in the bathtub managed to get behind the bathroom door and close it, trapping herself inside. I watched the two cats paw at each other under the door. This amused me for about 15 minutes, then I got up to liberate the poor cat.
I lay there some more, now having contractions. My midwife assures me that with a 5th pregnancy, my uterus is quite crabby and contractions are normal, especially in these final months. (I think the actual term she used was “irritable uterus”, not “crabby”.) They were painless, but annoying nonetheless. Like someone grabbing hold of your arm and squeezing.
Finally, the sun rose. I heard the 6:30 schoolbus stop, just as I was getting drowsy. I didn’t hear the 7:30 bus, or Phil’s alarm go off, or him get up. I did feel him kiss my cheek and I told him I hadn’t slept. He told me he’d tell the children to be quiet so I could sleep now.
I heard my clock radio turn on, then off again 5 minutes later. (It really turned itself off an hour later.) I didn’t hear the 8:30 school bus. I woke up at 9:45 and realized I’d been asleep!!! then the next thing I knew it was 10:15.
My head still hurt.
I gave in to the Extra Strength Tylenol, got some breakfast, poured myself a Coke and went back to bed.
It’s now 12:30 and I am awake. And some days, that’s as good as it gets.
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Notice how the flag pole is mounted below the gutter and is bent backwards over the roof.
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