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People are Reading This!

I was just about to stop blogging seeing as I had no idea if anyone was out there reading this until I got a comment and a note! Yippee!!!! Anyone who says they don't care if anyone reads their blog is lying. If you didn't care if anyone read what you wrote, you'd not post it in a public forum. You'd write in a notebook or keep a private blog or something else. Anyhow, thanks to Natalie and Catsoul for letting me know someone is paying attention!

I traveled to Nashville earlier this week for a business trip, and the trip went fine, but oy the headache! I mean a literal headache. I woke up at exactly 2 a.m. Tuesday morning as I am prone to do lately due to the need to pee. My head was pounding. I laid in bed until 3:25 a.m. when it finally occurred to me to put a cold washcloth on my forehead. I went back to sleep, but only until 6:30 a.m. As soon as I stirred, I could feel my head still pounding.

I've been very cautious to limit my intake of any medicine, and I'm not drinking any caffeine. Nonetheless, this headache was bad enough that I took a Tylenol. Nothing. My head hurt so bad, I dry-heaved a couple of times. Unfortunately, a day off was not possible. As part of my job, I stand in front of a room full of people and introduce speakers, lead discussion sessions and deliver formal presentations. All of this was on the slate for Tuesday. Joy. I sucked it up and got ready. It had been about an hour and the single Tylenol hadn't even put a dent in my headache, so I took a second.

I managed to survive the day and remain mostly pleasant as I interacted with the meeting attendees and my co-workers. I finished my presentation and lead a discussion session, and at 3:00 p.m. it was time to head to the airport - head still pounding. I don't know if I mentioned that I work in healthcare - so most of the people I work with are pretty keen on pregnancy do's and don'ts. For fear of being judged, I didn't want to drink caffeine in front of them, but it has been known to help alleviate headaches in the past, and at that point, I was willing to try anything. At the airport, I grabbed a Diet Dr. Pepper and took another Tylenol. By the time the airplane took off, the pain started to dull. I apologized to my unborn child for any damage I may have caused him or her. Both caffeine and Tylenol are supposed to be safe in moderation, but nonetheless, I'd rather not take the risk in most cases.

When I got back to KC, I attended an event with my husband called
Pecha Kucha Night. The format of the presentations is very strict and very unforgiving, but it is also very interesting. Here is how it works:

-The MC introduces the speaker with a brief bio. There is no agenda and other than the listing of names you see on their website, you have no idea of what each presenter will speak about.

- Each presenter prepares 20 slides.

- Each slide is displayed for 20 seconds.

- The presenter can talk about anything they want during their 6 minutes and 40 seconds, but when the Thank You slide appears, they say �thank you� and leave the stage.

- No Q&A from the audience (although they shouted a couple of questions for one speaker who under-planned his time per slide creating awkward silence.)

The presentations I heard were as varied as the potential invasion of the predatory species the Burmese python to a review of a comic series about the shattered lives of movie monsters of the 1930s (i.e. Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, etc.) There were designers, sculptors and an architect, but no one had to stick to talking about their day job � in fact, only two speakers did and they weren�t as good as the others.

Anyhow, it was a really cool event, and I enjoyed it, but near the end, my head started pounding again. It has finally let up as of this morning, but 40 hours worth of headache was almost too much for me.

Tomorrow is our monthly check-up and I plan to ask the Dr. if there is anything I can do to help prevent the headaches. She'll most likely tell me that they are caused by hormones, but maybe she'll have a few ideas. Here's hoping!

11:26 a.m. - June 12, 2008

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