Training Day

Thanks for all the positive comments on the Sweater I Hate. Maybe I’ll wear it sometime....

It’s raining here tonight – just started as I was driving home. I love the sounds I’m hearing right now: Digit’s rough tongue washing himself, the hiss of the gas heater next to me, the people upstairs thumping about (somehow homey), the rain falling in large enough drops outside that they’re making that plopping sound, the occasionally great THUMP as Adah hurtles her little body at the bathroom door, hoping to get out so she can steal Digit’s food. Okay, that last isn’t a nice noise. It’s a pretty funny one, though.

Look! This is cool. Adah has her own little doppelganger. This is Adah:

Shelley in England (from Jane):

I had a migraine yesterday. A real one. I was at work, and the headache started up and just kept getting worse. I have new respect for all you sufferers out there. It sucked. Understatement. Not only did I just want to lie in the dark and/or die, but I got snappish and teary and all out of sorts. I also turned stupid and refused to go home sick, preferring to play the martyr. How annoying I must have been. I woke up this morning feeling completely sick and hung-over. The hang-over with none of the fun. Shite.

And today I started training a new person at work. It’s kind of big deal for me – I’ve dodged the trainer bullet for a long time. Scared, I guess. Dispatching is just such an impossible thing to teach – it generally takes about three to five months, sometimes longer. It took me three years to start to get comfortable with the job, and training feels like stepping back to the beginning, somehow. Reliving the agony. I had a dream last night that I was trying to talk to the trainee and she wouldn’t listen to me and when I looked down I had forgotten to put on shoes. It was awful.

I talked constantly for almost ten hours today, until I was hoarse, and I said almost nothing. For everything I taught her, I thought of forty-seven other things that she absolutely had to know right at that very moment. Frustrating and difficult, but somehow satisfying. Don’t quote me on that.

(But training is going to be so all-consuming for the next month that I won’t be posting as often. Or as well, for that matter. I’m sooo brain-fried right now. I feel like I’ve used my allotment of words for the whole week, just today. And it doesn’t really allow for me to take a break, so no writing on my lunch break. MUST WRITE AT HOME. Must not rely on work breaks to get my writing done. Hold me to it, kay?)

Off to make a lamb chop (wish me luck) and take a bath. And off to bed early tonight, ‘cause I’m gonna get some writing in before work tomorrow morning. Yippee! Hope you’re as happy and warm and dry as I am tonight. I lurve fall, don’t you? Knittin' weather if I ever felt it.

Comments

[NURSE NINA]

Sorry to hear about the migraine. I get them, and I pray to die...they are
so horrible. I take heavy prescription drugs for mine, but there are over
things I have tried/heard work:
1)Excedrin, it deosn't have to be the "migraine" label, it has the same
stuff in it as the regular one, Aspirin, Tylenol, Caffeine, a wonderful combo.
2)A strong cup of coffe with or without a Tylenol, it seems to help.
3)A herb called feverfew, I would go to to a natural food store around you
and ask to talk to a herbalist. Feverfew is great, but it takes a while to work
it's more of a long term thing. DON'T Just get some to try, it does have
have some other, less desireable effects, it can thin your blood, this is
not a problem for most people, but still.
4)Ibuprofen is a great anti-inflammatory and can help, it also os a blood thinner
5)Some swear by Aleve, it doesn't to crap most of the time for me.
6)Some people like an ice pack, I like heat.
Anyhow, I can go on, and on....Keep track of this, if it happens again, I
would call your MD, and let them know. Since the occular migraine and now this are two fairly new occurances in your life, they might want to do a scan or some labs.
Sorry, I am a nurse....Take care of yourself Rachel!

[Stella]

Oh poor girl. I used to get migraines (knock on wood). There is a drug called Imitrex which is a miracle. It still gives you a hangover but you take it as soon as you realize what's happening, and it works. Go to your doctor. You don't have to suffer. Mine went away when I got physical therapy for my neck. I could not believe that people would just wait it out. I used to go to ER. I hope you get better.

[Amber]

I get the most awful migraines, mostly allergy related. I hates them. Here's hoping that this doesn't become a common occurance for you.

(ps, the secret project is super cute!)