Another Day of Headaches

It has been almost 14 months since Andrew was born, and in those 14 months, many amazing things have happened. Two days ago, Greg showed me that Andrew can point out Pap Ed, Greg and Jacob in pictures! He can retrieve many items when asked, he knows the basics of phone usage, what shoes are for, where the toilet lock goes (although the only time that he wants it in place is when you are actually trying to use the toilet). He is not only walking well now, but running well too. He can bark (ok, it's more like hoot) like a dog, "varoom" a car around the carpet, and "run" the vacuum. Oh, and he officially says one word. "Fish." Yes, folks. It is an understatement to say that my husband, the Pro Bass Fisherman was thrilled when Andrew very clearly stated 'fish' a few days ago. Believe it or not, it was completely uncoached. Personally, I was rooting for 'mom,' even though he doesn't even make an mmmm sound yet. (And also note that he doesn't point ME out in pictures!) He was actually referring to goldfish crackers, but hey, we'll take what we can get!

In the last year, Jacob has accomplished quite a bit too. Adjusting to sharing the limelight was no small feat for my little king. He did very well, with only a few minor bumps along the way. He did wonderfully in kindergarten and really excelled academically. Right now we are preparing for his 6th birthday party, which has a dinosaur theme, complete with pinata, toss the dino in the volcano game, pin the tail on the dino game and a 15x15 bounce house. Please pray for good weather! I know one 6 year old who will be terribly disappointed if his bounce house is rained out, and one 32 year old mother who will be rather salty if she paid through the nose for a plastic heap to get wet in the yard!

Really, the year has been good. We've had a few hurdles to overcome, but nothing monumental in our family, and I am extremely grateful for that. The only thing that is tainting it for me is my head. I just can't get rid of these incessant headaches. The elavil worked for a very brief period - about 2 months, and then slowly the headaches came back. Now I am trying another medication, which I have only been taking for about a month, so I haven't seen any results with it yet. I'm not even at my goal dose yet, and my goal dose is extremely low. On one hand, that's good, because it gives me a lot of room to play with the medication, but on the other hand, it tells me that relief could still be many months in the making, and that is sometimes just very hard to swallow.

I try very hard not to complain about it every day, but I don't know how successful I am. I think I do well at work, but probably less so with family. I'm sure everyone around me is just as sick of hearing about it as I am of feeling it. It's just maddening. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. Unending, constantly annoying pain. The only 'as needed' medication I found to get rid of the headache makes me so sick, that I can't take it, because it's preferable to have the headache than to suffer the side effects of the medication!

If anyone knows of any alternative medicines, I would be interested to hear about them. Or if anyone knows of a good acupuncturist around me, I would also be interested. I can't travel far regularly, and my understanding is that you need to have multiple treatments back to back to reap the benefits, but at this point, I would at least like to look into other methods, even as a supplement. I'm off of work for a little while over the summer and would like to take that time to get this under control before returning to the chaos of work at the beginning of the school year. Your help is appreciated!