Happy 41st Migraine birthday...

Everything hurts.  I woke up this morning to the alarm I set last night to get going on my brick workout, and I know that it isn't going to happen today.  My movements happen in slow coordination as I try to figure out my next steps to move out of this attack, and I'm not sure what to do.

At 2:30am, I was woken by an intense pain in my head, on the left side, behind and to the left of my eye, with some diffusion across the rest of my skull.  I managed to make it downstairs, ate something and took some Aleve.  It took until 3:30 to fall back asleep...the pain of this migraine was intense enough that I couldn't sleep until it dulled.

So this morning, I am in post-apocalyptic damage control mode.  I know that maintaining a normal caffeine schedule is crucial to exiting this mess, and forcing myself to have a normal breakfast is key as well.  I do not want to eat.  I do not want to move, in fact.  I can feel the effects of the migraine lingering--blood vessels in my temples are still swollen with the after-effects of the increased blood flow that accompanies this headache.  My back and my feet hurt as if to say "Don't forget us--we cause you problems too!"  All of the muscles I have problems with maintaining flexibility get ramped up to contract just a little more.

There's a fluid imbalance that often goes with migraine, which makes my light-headedness and general ill-feeling from yesterday make sense.  I did not, however, predict that this would wind up peeking with the headache that woke me up last night.  I am also not sure why I'm having a cyclic period of these migraines now--though it is not out of the general trend that I have had in the past.  I'll go 2 or 3 months with these happening frequently, and then not experience one for several years.  This round started sometime in January, I think, so I am hopeful that it is coming to an end.

For triathlon, I've been through the bargaining stages for today's workouts--"I'll get a shorter brick in"...turns into..."I'll do my brick tomorrow, and go for an easy swim today."  I don't know where I'll land, except that I know that on my 41st birthday, my first task is to make an omelette and force myself to eat it, because a full breakfast is key to climbing out of this disaster.