Pills, Pills, And None of Them For Fun

This whole headache thing must cease. One or both of my hands constantly massaging my head is starting to be part of my makeup, and being one who has incredible disdain for chronic illness (‘just get over it” I scream to myself), I am really struggling here. Plus walking around with one of those blue eye masks is absolutely ruining every outfit.

This past weekend was the Weekend of Freedom I have been crowing about for two months. Eric and I pawned off the kids on my good friend Donna and her husband Jim, pretended we even still knew the direction to South Beach, and began approximately thirty-six hours of attempting without-child conversation. Eric’s cousin Tony was celebrating turning forty, and had secured hotel rooms at South Beach for all his friends.

Friday night started with a casual dinner, and I was sleepy (as usual) by about 7:15. It turns out my body had no idea that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It supposed everything was business as usual, and that I would need to be up in less than twelve hours, starting yet another shift of “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, formula-mixing calculations, and complex, impossible-to-diagram sentences like, “That’s a flower. Isn’t it a pretty flower? Do you want to smell the flower?”

The attempt at drinking a margarita to make myself feel like a grownup did not succeed; apparently I needed something more substantial, like an amphetamine lick in the kitchen. And as Lisa was completely remiss as a hostess not to provide this, we said goodnight at 11:30 and fell immediately asleep, promising ourselves that tomorrow would Be A New Day—one in which I would resurrect that witty, interesting, pre-marriage self, and would also magically fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans.

Saturday was spent poolside, in a cabana, while many of the guests played a friendly (Tony: “Eric, move over, MOVE OVER, you are standing in the wrong spot. Three hits, THREE HITS!”) game of volleyball. And I lounged, completely relishing the fact that I was not putting sunscreen on an unwilling Jake. Later that evening, just as the party was at its apex at a Significant Restaurant at South Beach, and I was armed with my Significant Birthday Present to provide the pictures for Lisa, I got hit with a Significant Migraine. So while others dined, and drank those incredible sexy martinis with odd ingredients, I sat in the bathroom puking and puking and puking and puking (that’s puking to the fourth degree, friends), willing myself to pull it together and get rid of the pounding over my right eye. Eric found a couple of Excedrin and gave me full permission to excuse ourselves (which I refused). I was NOT going to shirk my photojournalistic duties, nor succumb to this tumor in my temple. And I did beat it without having to go to bed and pass out. The throwing-up helped, as did the Excedrin, and the cool tile of the bathroom wall (oh bless you, cool bathroom tile, you are my best friend). After I exited the ladies room, I was able to drink an Espresso, and participate (mildly) in the rest of the evening, with not many people any the wiser.

Sunday when I picked up Jake and Olivia and I buried my nose in Olivia’s cool little cheek and breathed in, I swear I had never smelled anything so lovely in my life. It makes the fact that the next stop on the Headache Cure Train is a 24-hour EEG—with my head covered with electrodes transmitting to a receiver I wear on my hip—seem tolerable and reasonable. Missing a party because of my head is one thing, missing time with my children is quite another. So until this whole brain pain thing is understood, if you are in Boca and see a woman wheeling an Imitrex Drip, be sure and say hi—it’s me.