I have to go to the dentist today for two of the most dreaded words in dental work: root canal. Yes, I have to have a root canal this afternoon. I lost a filling in a tooth a while back and the nerve in the tooth has died. While it has not caused any signs of pain, when I went to the dentist a few weeks ago for a cleaning, the x-ray showed that there was the beginning of a small infection near that tooth. The infection has not caused any problems or pain so far, but that might have to do with the nerve in that tooth already being compromised. Anyway, I’ll spend roughly two hours of my afternoon in a dental chair today.
On a brighter note, here’s your Isabella fix for the week. She decided to supervise my cooking the other night:
I don’t think she approved of the ingredient I just added.
Now, she seems just surprised and maybe skeptical of whatever ingredient I’d just added.
Maybe at this point I’m getting at least tacit approval.
I overslept this morning. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder yesterday. It continually felt worse and hurt more throughout the day. After I got home and had dinner, I took a muscle relaxer to try to help. I fell asleep around 8:30 pm last night and had to drag myself out of bed this morning. Now, I feel like I’m already running behind today. Thankfully, my shoulder feels better but is still hurting. Hopefully, it will continue to feel better as the day goes on.
Here in Vermont, we’ve had rain every day this week. I honestly don’t mind the rain, but my migraines do. Changes in air pressure causes my migraines to act up. I definitely have a problem whenever the air pressure is low, and Vermont has been in a low pressure system for past several days.
In other words, I’ve had terrible migraines all week. It started Sunday night and was pretty awful throughout Monday. I had been out with a bad migraine the Monday before, so I felt bad about calling in two Mondays in a row. My migraine got so bad Monday night that I went to bed at 7:30 pm. Last night, I went to bed at 9 pm. At least I’m getting at least 8 hours of sleep. The sun is expected to return on Friday, so hopefully, this migraine will improve by then.
I try to be a pleasant, congenial person with a smile on my face, even when I don’t feel it. Sometimes, though, I find it difficult to keep up an affable façade when I’m not really feeling it. Usually, the irritability I can’t hide is because of not feeling well. For the past week, my migraines have been a bit worse than usual. I’m not for sure if it’s the seemingly ever changing weather or wildfire smoke passing over Vermont. Since Sunday, our air quality has been worsening.
Then again, my irritability may be because I’m just fed up with hearing people complain. Some people are going to constantly complain and nothing will satisfy them. This is especially true when a person is a martyr narcissist, i.e., a person who constantly acts as if their every action is a personal sacrifice. People like this don’t want their complaints satisfied because they can’t keep receiving the sympathy they crave. Then, there are those people who are just miserable human beings who want others to suffer the way they do, even when they aren’t actually suffering.
Also, politics in the United States right now are fucking annoying, and if I watch even ten minutes of the news, I can’t get away from it fast enough. Why can’t politicians be positive in their campaigning instead of always negative? I think partly because anger drives people to vote, and the angrier a politician can make voters by denigrating their opponents the more likely they’ll get their votes. Too many Americans are voting out of hate and fear instead of voting for peace and hope.
It’s probably the combination of all three that have me so irritable today. Thank God, I’m working from home today and won’t have to deal with people. I’m not sure I could put a smile on my face today. Yesterday, I just buried my head in a project and tried to ignore everything else. I think I just need some alone time to recenter and reset.
Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” was stuck in my head this morning:
It’s a new dawn It’s a new day… And I’m feeling good
Over the past few days, I have had a really bad migraine. The pain and nausea on Monday were enough to keep me home from work. I was feeling some better yesterday morning, so I went back to work, but mainly it was because I had some work I needed to do and a meeting in the afternoon.
Today, I’m again feeling better, but I still have a bit of a headache. Today is another busy day. I have a dental cleaning appointment this morning and two meetings this afternoon. Yesterday was a busy day, and it looks like today will be too.
I’m not up to writing much today. I’m not even sure I’m up to going to work today. I slept later than usual this morning waking up with a headache and a bit nauseated. If I start feeling better after I’ve had breakfast, I’ll go to work, otherwise, I’ll go back to bed.
With Debby now a tropical depression, she’s heading my way. Though she’s expected to mainly be west of us in northern New York on a track for Montreal, we will still get a significant amount of rain. We don’t need more rain right now as some of our rivers are still high and at risk of flooding.
One of the things I do not miss from living in the South is tropical storms and hurricanes. These storms are low pressure systems which means they wreak havoc on my migraines. I’ve always had some of my most severe migraines when there are low pressure systems.
While it’s always caused migraines, it’s a bit worse these days because of the trigeminal neuralgia (TN). It’s sort of like people who have an old injury that acts up when it rains, the TN causes nerve pain in the right side of my face. Think of three electric shocks originating form about you ear and traveling to your eye, your nose, and down your jaw.
My TN started acting up yesterday and continues this morning. Thankfully, I’m working from home today and can take it easy. I have work to do, but I can take frequent breaks when needed.
For anyone who’s had or will have effects from Debby, I hope you are staying safe, and for everyone, I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead!
If I didn’t have to be at work today, I’d be back in bed. I went to bed last night with an intense migraine, and I woke up with a migraine, though thankfully not as severe as the one I had when I went to bed. I stayed up a little later than usual last night. I’m usually in bed by 10 pm every night.
Last night though, I’d stayed up to see Victor/Victoria (1982) on TCM. It’s a film I haven’t seen in a long time, and I’ve always been a fan of Julie Andrews. If you’ve never seen it, the musical comedy is about a female singer down on her luck who dresses as a man who dresses as a woman to perform in Paris nightclubs in the 1930s. It’s an interesting movie because of its positive portrayal of gay men. It’s a film worth watching.
After watching the movie, it took a little while to get settled and go to sleep. I wish I’d been able to sleep a little longer this morning, but whenever I wake up with a headache, it’s hard to fall back to sleep. So as I write this, I still have a migraine. I took my medicine, so hopefully I’ll feel better before I head into work. Sometimes, a nice hot shower helps.
I don’t have a lot to say today, but I know some of you might want to know how my appointment with the Audiologist went. He said I am having some hearing loss, especially hearing consonants. He told me hearing aids would help with both the hearing loss and the tinnitus. He wants me to see and ENT (otolaryngologist) to get a medical diagnosis because otherwise my health insurance won’t cover the hearing aids. I doubt my insurance will cover much of the cost anyway, and it will probably be an aggravating process.
At some point in my life, I don’t remember when it actually started, I began hearing a ringing in my ears. It’s sort of like a high pitched whine all the time. I’m not sure I’ve ever had any point when there was absolutely silence. I just thought it was normal since I seem to have always heard it. Some days it’s like hearing cicadas in my head. If you live in an area with those creepy little hidden bugs, you know how annoying that sound can be. I talked to my doctor about it, and he confirmed what I already knew. I have tinnitus.
Often tinnitus is a sign of hearing loss though, from what I’ve read, it’s not associated with the cause of hearing loss nor is it caused by hearing loss. This is what my doctor is most worried about, so I have an appointment with an audiologist this morning.
Many people with tinnitus also experience headache disorders, suggesting that one condition may trigger the start of the other. Some scientists believe that tinnitus and headaches could have a feedback loop of one causing the other — or that they could have a common cause. Tinnitus may also trigger migraine episodes. With my migraines I typically have additional symptoms besides pain. I usually become acutely sensitivity to light, sound, or smell*. An estimated 20 percent of people with migraine attacks say they also have tinnitus.
While I do not yet know what the audiologist might say or if he’ll have an idea of what is causing the tinnitus, I know that when I have a severe migraine the ringing in my ears seems especially loud. I’ve also known for a while that I often have a difficult time hearing people and have to have them repeat themselves several times before I can figure out what they are saying, and even then, I can’t always tell. I often just smile and nod my head.
I’m anxious to hear what the audiologist says today.
* When I have a migraine, my sense of smell becomes particularly sensitive. If someone comes into the museum and is wearing perfume or cologne, I can often smell them from the other side of the museum. I always say that I have the nose of a bloodhound. One of my friends says that I have the nose of a pregnant woman.
Joe
The Closet Professor 