TToT: Thirty-six Pick Up Sticks #BlanketSea #10Thankful

Let’s just dive in.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

I am a little older and wiser since the tenth of the month and yet I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m headed. Currently, I am listening to a live feed from a famous pub in Dublin, Ireland with live, Friday night entertainment.

I did turn thirty-six recently and my niece and nephew were so excited to start celebrating with me. We had a cake made and sampled by the time my sister arrived with dinner.

I am thankful for family on my birthday. Even my nearly three-year-old niece sang. She loves to sing.

I am thankful for loved ones who can bring me smoothies, milkshakes, and oranges to soothe my sore throat.

I am thankful my post birthday cold didn’t last too long.

I am thankful for the nerve blocks I’ve been getting.

I am a little wary of being injected in my head, but in the nerves specifically. I have had Botox to try to treat headaches in the past. Nerve blocks are helping one very specific headache I get.

I am thankful to have written a poetry review for a talented artist’s first poetry chapbook.

You can read it here.

If you like what you hear, check her out.

I am thankful for my core group of three writing women who I get to write with twice a month.

They have such unique imagination in their heads and stories they read out to the group.

I am full of gratitude that they share with me in such a special way.

I am thankful we in Canada are starting to work on healing the deep rifts here between Indigenous groups and the government and your average Canadian citizen.

Canada loves the rule of law (unless we’re talking Indigenous rights)

Okay, well if we’re not doing a great job so far, I at least hope everyone doesn’t give up and keeps talking.

I know things seem particularly rough right now, but at least we’re facing these issues, head-on. When we push them down and hope they won’t make too much trouble, it only prolongs any possible solutions.

I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I feel quite emotional about it all when I think of the history of this land and how it will all progress in future.

The live performance at Temple Pub and they are doing a version of this, one of my favourite songs by The Cranberries, after all this time.

It reminds me to keep on dreaming for myself. I am extremely grateful for dreams, but I remind myself of this lyric often:

“Don’t mind dreams. It’s never quite as it seems. Never quite as it seems.”

I am thankful for February. This winter hasn’t been as cold as some likely have been, but still cold enough for complaints, but I love this time of year better than summer.

I am thankful for anything I can do to distract myself from some of what’s going on in the world these days. I’m nervous that 2020 will be a long, rather scary year in some ways, but that’s why I keep doing all the things that bring me fulfillment and joy to balance it all out.

Wrinkle

As I lay on the examining table in the specialists’ office I wondered how many women would have done anything to be in my position. I was barely twenty and getting Botox. I had no wrinkles, at least if I were a couple decades older I could feel like I was killing two birds with one stone. Let’s just hope this would be the thing to magically relieve the pain.

Her Headache isn’t just a meaningless name. I chose it back when I was first asked to pick an email address, because I had suffered from chronic headaches for a couple years by then, and anything could cause one. Technology was one of those things to cause the most stress and stress was what could cause my head to throb like nothing else.

This particular neurologist was extremely empathetic and seemed like he was an expert in all things neurological. HE dealt mostly with accident victims, paraplegics, and such. HE examined me, bent my arms and legs in strange ways, commenting on how flexible my muscular-skeletal system and the connective tissue seemed. He asked me what I had tried for my headaches so far and I told him about the physical therapy and exercises I had recently been trying. I told him I had been doing the exercises I had been given by the PT and he asked if they were helping. I told him I hadn’t noticed much of a difference. His answer being, “So then why do you continue to do them?” I liked his down-to-earth relateability and medical manner.

I plan to write about one treatment I tried to treat my daily headaches, every Memoir Monday for the month of June. June is National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month. I feel for all the poor souls all over the world who live with headaches or migraines every single day.

He injected me with the Botox, giving me several little needles along my forehead, just below my hairline. The pain wasn’t a problem for me. I had many needles in my day, in spots all over my body, and the headaches were much worse than a few measly needle pokes in my scalp. This was supposed to relax blood vessels in the head and hopefully relieve some of the pain I was feeling. It wasn’t cheap either and we had to pay, not yet being considered a necessary medical procedure.

After a few treatments it was clear I wasn’t experiencing the effect the neurologist had hoped for and that I was desperate to find. It had been a worthwhile attempt and I must have gone wrinkle free for a few weeks at least, but the effect was lost on me.

I will be back next Monday to tell of another thing my doctors and I tried to get rid of the pesky nasty headache. I have lots of stories where headaches are the central element. This month I hope to do my part to bring awareness to the seriousness of headaches and the havoc they can cause for those who are forced to live with them.