Everything seemed to go fine yesterday. I spent most of the day sleeping, which was probably exactly what my body needed. The endoscopy showed no esophageal varices, which was a huge relief. The doctor did take a few biopsies of some discoloration in my throat, but that was purely precautionary and nothing to worry about—most likely just irritation from acid reflux. Today I’m left with a sore throat, but that’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.

This afternoon I head to the dentist to get the permanent crown for the tooth I had worked on last month. After that, I’m officially away from the office until January 5. I’ll work from home tomorrow, but otherwise things are slowing down a bit.

The weekend will be spent packing and getting ready for my trip to Alabama. My plane leaves at the painfully early hour of 5:30 a.m. Monday morning, so Sunday night will be an early one. For now, I’m just taking things one step at a time and grateful that yesterday brought mostly good news.

I hope your week is treating you gently.

I woke up this morning with a migraine and am currently sitting here with my coffee, trying to decide whether I’m going to call in sick or if this will be one of those migraines that eventually eases up. Right now, it’s a waiting game.

I’ll admit, part of me simply doesn’t want to go to work today—but I also hate calling in sick, especially on a Monday. Mondays already feel heavy enough without adding guilt to the mix.

So for now, I’m sipping coffee, giving my head a little time, and seeing how things go. I hope your Monday is starting out better than mine, and I hope the week ahead is a good one for all of us.

☕️

Update: I did go in to work. The migraine isn’t gone, but it’s manageable for now. If it gets worse, I’ll head home.

I really don’t have much to say today. I’m feeling a bit low — just a little sad and worn down — and I’m not up to writing much this morning. Some days are like that: quiet, heavy, and a little gray around the edges.

I’m giving myself permission to keep things simple today, and I hope you’ll do the same if you need it. Be kind to yourselves, and I’ll be back when my spirits lift a bit.

Today is shaping up to be one of those days where everything seems to land at once. I’ll spend the first half of the morning setting up for a class, and the second half actually teaching it. Then, once the students are gone, I’ll be putting away all of the materials and resetting the space.

And that’s just the morning.

This afternoon I’ll be heading up to Burlington for an ultrasound of my liver. I had bloodwork done on Friday, and tomorrow I meet with my liver specialist—so it’s going to be a medically themed start to the week whether I like it or not. On top of that, someone is coming by to replace my windshield because the crack that’s been creeping across the bottom finally decided to make itself a priority.

So yes… a great deal of juggling today, and a sincere hope that everything runs on schedule.

Before I get swept up in the chaos, I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes yesterday. It meant a lot. I had a quiet day at home with Isabella—never a bad way to spend a birthday—and I’m grateful for all the kind messages.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week ahead. May yours be a little calmer than mine is starting out to be!

My vacation is officially more than halfway over, and I’m already dreading returning to work next week. The only silver lining is that it’ll be a short week—and most of it I’ll be entirely alone at the museum. There’s a certain peace in that, even if it also reminds me that the quiet is coming to an end.

All week, I’ve told myself I’d finally get back to working out. With the days free, I could go during daylight hours and maybe even run into my former trainer. After being out so long because of my back, I’ve become an expert at excuses—telling myself I’ll go after work (I never do) or that I’ll get up early and go before work (I definitely never do). But even this week, one thing after another has popped up and thrown off my plans.

Yesterday I even packed my gym clothes when I headed to the Headache Clinic. The plan was simple: do a little shopping, have lunch, and then swing by Planet Fitness before heading home. But the Botox had my head feeling tender, and a migraine settled in before the day was over. So instead of working out, I went home and took a nap. Not exactly the fitness comeback I envisioned.

This morning, though, I plan—there’s that word again—to go before lunch. I’ve got a dentist appointment this afternoon for the crown I’ve been putting off. The appointment is from 2 to 4 p.m., which means my mouth will still be comfortably numb right around dinner time. So either I skip dinner altogether or eat far later than I prefer. Either way, I suspect I won’t feel like doing much once I get home.

Staycations never quite go the way we imagine, do they? But at least for now, I still have a few slow hours ahead of me—and maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it to the gym today.

I woke up around 2 a.m. with a bad migraine — the kind that makes it hard to tell if you’re awake or just drifting in and out of pain. I dozed off and on for about an hour and a half before finally giving up to Isabella’s persistence and the realization that my headache was getting worse, not better.

If I didn’t have a major event at the museum today, I’d have called in sick and crawled back into bed. I hate when a migraine hits hard enough to bring nausea with it, and even more when I know I can’t give in to it. Some days, you just have to barrel through and keep going because there’s too much to do to stop.

Thankfully, I’m taking a vacation day tomorrow and working from home again on Friday, so there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. My event today ends at 1 p.m., and if I can get everything cleaned up and put back in order quickly, maybe I can head home early.

Sometimes my migraines ease as the day goes on, and if that happens, great. If not, I’ve learned that keeping busy can hold the pain at bay — at least until I stop. Then, of course, it all catches up with me. Hopefully, today will go smoothly and the hours will fly by quickly.

I survived the after-effects of the COVID vaccine and am feeling much better today. Yesterday morning was rough, but other than an intense migraine, all of my other symptoms went away by the afternoon. I did have some extra pain in my back, which may also have been triggered by the vaccine, but it’s manageable now.

I still have a slight migraine—what doctors call a postdrome. Migraines often have four phases: the prodrome, which comes before the headache and can include fatigue, food cravings, or mood changes; the aura, which some people experience as visual or sensory disturbances; the headache itself; and finally, the postdrome, a sort of “migraine hangover” that can leave you tired, foggy, or achy even after the worst pain is gone.

Other than that, I’m doing okay. I’d love another day to recover fully, but I have three meetings today and plenty of work waiting for me.

To make things even more interesting, my internet provider appears to be part of the global outage affecting many major services. So this will be a short post today, as I’m posting from my phone’s network—which works fine, just very slowly out here where I live.

Here’s hoping everything, including my head and the internet, clears up soon.