Darned If You Do...

Hostess Update: Not as in "Hostess Cupcakes" but as in I played hostess to a friend for dinner. Everything went well, dinner was wunderbar (thank you, Barefoot Contessa!) and I managed to provide some entertainment by inadvertently spraying myself in the face with the vegetable sprayer on my kitchen sink while rinsing the pasta for dinner. My comic timing is impeccable. So Martha Stewart isn't exactly in danger of losing her crown, but she'd better watch her back, just in case. I'm on my way up there...

In other news, it's almost 1 a.m. on Thursday morning, and I'm still awake, have just answered emails from a couple of friends, and am now blogging. This is relatively unheard of, or was, until just a couple of weeks ago. Okay, it was frequent when I was still unemployed, but lately, it's been rare.

What's changed?

Insomnia. That's what.

Raging insomnia.

Bullish insomnia.

We've got the taurus of insomnias over here. It's not going anywhere.

Why? There's a couple of options.

Option Number One: I have no clue. I'm stressed about multiple things on multiple levels and they're all keeping me awake. I have too many ideas and too little time in which to work on them, and I want to start working on some of them NOW but I've told myself I can't until I finish other things.

Option Number Two: It's the pills. My neurologist prescribed preventive migraine medicine to help - er - prevent migraines.

Ahem.

It has multiple side effects, many of which are unpleasant, but which are experienced by a minority of users. I am the majority of the minority. Most users experience a change in the flavor of sodas (my beloved Dr. Peppers aren't quite as beloved, but still, they're part of my diet), so that's to be expected. A chosen few (and I'm one of the Chosen) experience 1) tingling in the face, fingers, and/or toes; 2) insomnia; 3) nausea; 4) decreased appetite; 5) difficulty with concentration.

There are other side effects, too. Others relating to the problem for which I had surgery last year, and which is currently reoccurring. So the medicine that helps my head happens to keep me from sleeping and makes my other health problems worse.

Blargh. So now, I get to call my neurologist and say, "Okay, so I know that this migraine medicine was working pretty well (although not great, because I've been having a migraine a week, the past three weeks, but it's better than five migraines per week, right?) but I think we might need to try something else, because, you know, it's making my other health problems a bazillion times worse and I can't sleep so I'm having difficulty functioning at work.

My doctor's proactive. If I'm having a problem, she's looking for a solution. Bing bang boom. Here's the next step. Hopefully, the next step won't be a pratfall.