The Empowered Lifestyle

Last night my little boy had a migraine. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. I was all set to blog my first recipe post this morning, but, can’t seem to shake the night’s events away, so I figure I would write about torturous Thursday night first and then come back to the magical, mystical and oh so delish salsa recipe chop chop. That said, here’s more about the little scare for big Mom.

About half past six last night my pre-teen son comes into the kitchen and announces that he’s having trouble “seeing.” I swear, that’s what little Helen Keller came in and said; “Mom, there’s something wrong with my eyes and I can’t see.” Knowing his penchant for the dramatic, I had to quickly weigh the severity of the situation. He didn’t seem too concerned himself but did see fit to stand in front of me with his left hand smack in front of his face only to tell me that when he held his hand like that he could “only see every other finger.”

Hmmm. Looking at me for some sort of grown up explanation, I stood pouring my blood orange juice into two fingers of Grey Goose. And coolly diagnosed with the usual: “puberty.” “But, Mom, my fingers keep disappearing and if I turn it this way, I can only see part of my hand.”

Okay Harry Potter, I thought, the train for Hogwarts is probably pulling out of Station 9 and ¾ right now and if you hurry you might just make it! Or, you could go back and finish your homework while I try to figure this all out. (All of this conversation was going on in my head while something painful was brewing in his.)

He did return to his homework at my computer but only for about five minutes before I heard this GIANT, and I mean GIANT, yelp from my office. I ran to see what was up and there he was, this little crying copper-headed boy, slumped over my desk, holding his hurting head, just crying and crying and crying. He was in big pain. Now, I was worried.

I got him up, took him to my bed and snuggled him up with a toddy of Motrin and a few sips of cold Coke. I remembered from some training somewhere that caffeine constricts the blood vessels during a bad headache and has been proven to help mitigate a migraine. Now, at this point mind you, I still wasn’t sure that’s what was happening but the complaints about blurry vision almost immediately followed by a jackhammer going off in his brain pretty much spelled it out. I was just waiting for him to tell me he felt any sort of nausea before I was sure. That happened about twenty seconds after the first Motrin dose, as he lay spread eagle across my five hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets (yet another remnant from the old life) informing that he was “gonna puke in the bed, MOM!” Oh, good, as long as it’s pink bubblegum flavored Motrin mixed with ebony cola that comes out, we’ll all be just fine. He didn’t get sick, though. (Good lad; I’ve taught him well.)

I also knew to put ice on the back of the neck. What I forgot was that the ice should go back of the neck, on the forehead stretching all the way to both temples WHILE feet are in a warm water bath with two cups Epsom salts. The idea here is that the ice helps the pressure from the headache and the warm salty water foot bath pulls the pain out. I remembered something about almonds in there ,too, but couldn’t quite recall what exactly. I looked it up this morning and there’s something in the nut, probably laetrile, that helps ease the pain of a migraine. Heads up: Eat twelve almonds slowly to head off a headache.

Anyway, an hour after the mountain of Motrin he still wasn’t much better. I kept changing the cool cloth at the front and the back of his hammering head, and also turned out every light I could find, while pushing the air conditioning down into meat-storing temperatures. After cutting up an adult style pain reliever that I had (hey, I had surgery in November and that was only like what eight years ago, of course I still need painkillers!), and giving him a quarter of one of my pills, he FINALLY fell asleep. But not before I missed the Ugly Betty finale and only just half-caught that Dale got the boot on Top Chef after restaurant wars. Of course, I was only catching these snippets (Daniel has a French son, so does my brother Bob, what a coincidence!), while I was refreshing the ice packing.

After a really good night sleep (THANK YOU TYLENOL WITH CODEINE!), he woke up good as new, but he’s still home from school today. And, of course, I can’t stop thinking about what in the world would cause a healthy and happy 6th grade boy to get a migraine?

Oh, right, puberty!