The migraine monster strikes again.

Yesterday I came down with another migraine. I don’t have time to be unable to work at 100%! Yesterday I needed to finalize the copy for the first week of my 8 Weeks to Financial Freedom program, get whatever hardware I need to record the first teleseminar meeting, as well as take care of Gracie and finish her laundry, do some shopping, etc. Perhaps that is the point. My sister and assistant, Victoria, came down with stomach troubles yesterday. She’s also involved in working on my 8 Weeks program, and had to finish projects for her clients, as well as tend bar last night (and it was her birthday on Sunday, so she had all the leftover junk left over from that). When I remarked that we did not have time for us to be sick, she said that we get sick because "we stress ourselves way too much." That is the problem. My body is trying to slow me down, but I really can’t do that today. Today I have two Get Acquainted appointments with new clients, the first meeting of my teleseminar class, and work to do because I am going out of town this week. Then tomorrow I’m shopping and packing for our camping trip (Thursday through Sunday in the Santa Cruz Mountains at Big Basin State Park) — and by the way, Mark may not be coming along due to work deadlines, so it may be just me and a toddler in the woods for four days and three nights — besides work deadlines early next week. Put all on top of this that I’m in between nannies (regular nanny starts again Nov. 6th) — so I am trying to do my full workload with less than 1/2 of my normal childcare hours — and no wonder my body is rebelling. I have been trying to take minimal care of myself — getting 7 hours of sleep and eating every 3 hours — but I could be doing better. The most difficult part is that I’m pretty happy in my life right now. I feel passionate about my business, I’m having great fun with Gracie, and life is pretty good. I wish I had more time alone with Mark (which will be helped when my regular nanny starts doing monthly Saturday night date nights for us again), I was exercising regulary, and a few unfinished things were done (home improvement projects) — but overall, life is good. I don’t want to slow down. But obviously my body does not agree with me. The question is — do I try to give in to my body, or help it to rise to the challenge?

Food poisoning really sucks. Don’t get it.

Last Thursday was a big day for me. The morning started out with leaving Gracie with the nanny so I could get a cavity filled at the dentist — ick. Then I popped in for a snack of pasta salad (see about this later), had a client appointment, then launched my new teleseminar program, 8 Weeks to Achieve Financial Freedom to the public. Very scary to start promotion for my first teleseminar (what if no one signs up, what if everyone hates it, what if I spelled something wrong in the flyer?). Then, I dashed off to the first meeting of the JLSJ (Junior League of San Jose) committee that I am Chair-Elect-ing this year. All with an upset stomach and a headache.

I come home to realize that I had my first teleseminar client sign up (great! but now I actually have to do it!). But, I did not feel good; terrible, actually. Stress, I thought. I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.

Instead of waking up to my usual 5:30 AM cry of “mommy!”, I woke up at 4:00 AM with a cramping stomach. Stress, I thought again. Thursday was such a busy day, I have a mile-long to-do list, and I’m dropping off Gracie at back-up daycare today. Just stress. Then I doubled-over in the shower from horrid stomach cramps. I felt like I was about 5 cm dialated, getting ready to deliver my intestines on the bathroom floor.

Wasn’t until later that day when I realized that it could not be just stress. Not until the next day did I realize that some bad pasta salad was to blame for my misery. Thank god I did not feed it to Gracie — we would have had to check her into the hospital.

I was sick until Monday (and I’m still not quite right) — which means that I am five days behind in work. The one side benefit is I took those days off from thinking about work, which has helped me to clear my mind and de-stress about all of my business projects.

Next time I need a few days off work, though, I’m just going to take a vacation.

I don’t have time to be sick.

Yesterday, I woke up with a migraine. I admit that now.

But yesterday I was in denial. Oh, it’s just a headache, perhaps I needed more sleep (but I had 6 1/2 hours), or drink more water, or my blood sugar was low. I will just drink some water, take two Excedrin, and plow through. I still will research blog promotion, go out to lunch with my familiy, clean up the backyard, play with Gracie, talk to my husband about his work, pick up the dry cleaning, help my husband pick out paint colors for his office, and design my new marketing plan.

But then reality caught up with me. After taking the family to Outback Steakhouse, and eating a steak with Gracie is climbing all over me while trying to keep Gracie from throwing a plate of mac and cheese across the room or her grabbing a serrated knife and waiving it around, I came home and realized that My Head Hurt.

By then, another dose of Excedrin and a cooling patch to the forehead were too late — I had a migraine. Which means, that I will Have a Migraine for 2-4 days.

I don’t have time for this! I have Work to Do, Baby to Care, Husband to Talk, House to Tidy Blog to Write, Business to Run.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps the reason I have migraines is my body’s mechanism to force me to Slow Down. Because, I definitely must slow down when I have a migraine. Obvously not too much though, because I am still typing a blog entry as we speak - but that may just be because I have a fairly high tolerance for pain.

When I decided for forego pain medication for the birth of my daughter, one of my reasons was because of my tolerance of my migraines (typically 4-6 days per month, 2 days with pain enough to disable). I would rather go through those 5 hours of labor each month than have 6 days of migraines. First, at the end of labor you get a baby (not that I want a baby each month, but you get the idea). Migraines have No Reason. Second, labor has a beginning and an end. Five hours is really not that long to deal with discomfort. Four days of a migraine is a long time. Not only do I Not Have Time for it, it really sucks!

According to the World Health Organization, migraines are a disabling illness. “WHO ranks Migraine as one of the top twenty causes of years of healthy life lost to disability.” National Migraine Association. And, all those migraine medications don’t work — for me they just give me weird side effects (like anxiety) and only take the edge off the pain (and do nothing for my nausea, tolerance for light, sound or smells).

For now I will just medicate myself with some chocolate donuts. One good side effect of migraines — I feel justified in eating anything I want.