Today was Pinewood Derby day for the cubscouts. It was an eagerly anticipated day as I have both a tiger cub and a bear cub. My bear cub placed fourth out of 27 scouts which I thought was phenomenal. Very proud of him.

My tiger cub placed first out of the Tiger cubs and 3rd in the championship race! We were kind of stunned by that one. A big first derby for him. Very proud of him as well.

Perhaps what made me the proudest today was how excited my eldest was for his little brother. Even though he didn’t win in his heats and didn’t get to go on to the Championship himself, there was no resentment or foul moods. He was right there cheering his brother on, even jumping up and down when he won first. That let me know we’re doing something right as parents.

So this post has absolutely nothing to do with writing unless you want an explanation of why I haven’t been doing much of it. I have migraines. I have had them since I was 16 years old. They are an old enemy, one I am unfortunately most familiar with. But they’re changing their MO and I don’t like it.

I got a headache on the evening of 8-12. Over the next several days I tried 4 prescription meds, 4 over the counter meds and had an MRI. Finally on the afternoon of the 23rd I went to the ER. You read that right. 12 days of a constant, non-ending headache. The wonderful doctor in the ER was quite possibly my favorite person in the world when she looked at me and said I would be pain free before I left the ER or they would admit me. First they gave me a shot of the stuff they’ve given me every other time I’ve had a nasty migraine. It did nothing. They did a CT scan then they gave me another combo of 3 drugs. Again, still in pain.

The doctor said she could give me stronger stuff but I’d have to stay so they could monitor me. I, of course, opted to stay. The gave me a shot of the same drug they gave me when I was in labor. Still had the headache. After the 2nd shot of it about 6:30 in the morning, it finally, finally broke through the headache.

I came home with 3 prescriptions, one of which I can’t take as it makes me sick. (That was of course the preventative) and one that cost a little over $10.00 a pill. I have two doctor’s appointments this week to follow-up and I’m also having to fill out FMLA paperwork for my job since I’ve missed so much the last couple of weeks. And will probably continue to miss as we try to figure out what the heck went wrong with my brain.

So that’s been my life the last couple of weeks. I missed out on seeing a friend speak at a writer’s meeting I’d been wanting to go to, and my little cousin’s birthday party. There were many words that went unwritten and many instances where my children were told to play in their rooms because they were too loud for mommy. It’s that last bit that kills me. It’s not fair to my kids that I can’t be the mom they deserve because I’m in pain so much.

Anyway, I tried to remedy the writing thing a bit tonight and got some editing done. As for the kids thing, I spent as much time as I could with them since I got home from the hospital. And they haven’t been told they were being too loud once. 🙂 Here’s hoping we figure something out so I can be a more productive mom and writer.