Friday, February 8, 2008

Migranes!

Why didn't I think of this! The bane of my life!

I just read a NYTimes by Siri Hustevdt about this exact monster.
http://migraine.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/arms-at-rest/

She has captured it well and you might relate to if you are a migraine sufferer yourself. Here are my comments that I sent to her.

Siri,
Nice article! Reading through it brought back memories of my own ways of dealing with what I once thought was a monstrosity. I recall migraines ruining my teenage and early adult years. Mine were related to my cycle. I remember so many trips to the neurologists, alternate medicine like homeopathy, even orthodontists, because one doctor suggested it was due to poorly aligned jaw! Its amusing in hindsight :) No medication seemed to help. My theory was that the way the Zomigs and the Midrins 'helped' migraines was by taking the focus to a different part of the body like dizziness and feeling sick to the stomach and inability to drive.

The way I used to pop the pain meds to take the edge off, got my husband really worried and he one day said that this was the wrong way to deal with it, as it was all psychological (not the pain, the thought that the meds would help :)).

I even have older friends and colleagues who have told me menopause won't always take care of it. I have tried omitting foods as an approach, but just the thought of staying off chocolate and nuts, and be happy, as in 'migraine-less' did not seem so appealing a treatment!

Just when I thought I was defeated by this dread of a 'disease' I went back to my roots in Hindu philosophy, which talks about acceptance. Thanks to my husband who said it differently but meant the same thing. I have to say this has to date been my best medicine. I know when an attack is coming, but I don't get anxious; I will slow down but will not stop to 'welcome' it. Three days of hormonal imbalance a month, I can deal with it. The world has worse problems!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Mana-isms

M is so funny and she cracks us all up with her innocence and quick wit. I told myself that I would jot down anything funny (in my eyes, which as a Mom, everything) she comes up with, so that I can have it as my keepsake of memories, something I did not do with D. I will try to keep this blog as an ongoing log of such happenings.

1. M has been hooked on the DVD, 'Krishna', the animated (I must say rather poorly, but that is for later :)) movie about the life of Lord Krishna. My in-laws, being big devotees of Krishna, have given her a little idol, and named him 'Kamala Kannan'(KK), which she adores like one of her dolls. The routine for the morning in our absence is to bathe KK, sing him a number of songs, all in tune might I add, followed by her own ablutions, and then a Lunch n Learn, where she watches the movie, Krishna. Having done this for a couple weeks now, she knows the story by rote.
One evening, I came home to see her watching the movie intently, as she chose to give me a running commentary. As the episode of Poothana trying to poison Baby Krishna unfolded, she educated me of the characters in play, and told me that Poothana was a Rakshasa and was there to 'kill' Krishna, at the order of Kamsa (a bad king), but Poothana could not because Krishna was God and nobody could harm him. Obviously this initial narration having come from my m-i-l, I looked at Amma in alarm and asked her why she had given her the gory details to the story. Amma, said she could not think of any other words to explain Poothana's evilness and told me not to sweat on the details anymore than what was told to M. We left it at that.
Fast forward to bedtime a couple nights after, where our ritual to put M to bed includes reading her at least half a dozen books before we turn the lights out. Book reading is followed narration of at least one story by either party (M, to dad or self). This time she chose to tell me a story, and of course, who would have thought, it was Krishna Story...again :( Fast forward yet again to the Poothana episode. M in her animated best, explained to me that Poothana, the Rakshasa, was in Gokul with the sole intention to 'kill' Krishna. And did she get me roaring with laughter when she actually pinched me to make the action of 'kill'. To 'killu' is to 'pinch' in Tamil, and our dear three year old had understood just that as the reason for Poothana the demoness's presence! So much for my chagrin of what she was exposed to at such a tender age, and even so was my m-i-l's amusement that her grandkid understood an English language completely different from what she was told :-)
Thank God for little kids and their innocence ... may she stay 3 for many more such episodes, is what my inner-mom cries for!