Griping as head goes *pound pound pound*

[breakinglight11]

After over a week of exhaustion and stress, I feel particularly lousy today. There is a low-grade headache in the top right side of my head that isn't as bad as it was last night, but still hasn't gone away even after a night's sleep.

I spent last night helping Jared work out the writing of his thesis. The first half was due today, and he used me as a sounding board to figure out the structure and flow. I agreed to read it once he was done and make suggestions as if I were the theoretical "mean, lazy, and stupid" reader that his professors warned him to write for. At some point I noticed I had developed a halo in my left eye. This has happened to me before and gone away on its own, so I wasn't too worried, more annoyed because I knew it would make it difficult to read. Then the headache set in, starting high on the right side of my head and spreading to just behind my hairline. I drank tea and grumbled as Jared finished the first part of his paper. The halo eventually went away, thankfully, and I read the paper and I think made some helpful comments. It really is a good work; I'm incredibly proud of him. Just one more section to go, and the second part is supposed to be easier than the first.

As I lay in bed that night, still headachey and now with nausea settling in, I wondered idly if I had a brain aneurysm. I was tired enough that I decided if I woke up dead the next morning, well, at least I'd get to sleep in.

Well, needless to say I did not wake up dead. Head still hurts, though, so perhaps my aneurysm is just a lazy-ass that's taking it's own sweet time to kill me. I feel zombie-like, quite useless for any form of productivity.

Traffic on my Livejournal has dropped drastically from last month to this. I am depressed about it. Maybe I've been less interesting. I feel less interesting, so it would not surprise me if my entries were becoming less so as well. I even look less interesting; I think the look of tiredness that's been dogging me makes me appear ten years older.

I think I need to take it easy for a little while. This week I shall do things to take care of me. I have a couple of minor social things I'd like to indulge in. I have a hot date, heehee, with blendedchaitea this coming Friday night that we've been meaning to have for a while, and I've been meaning to have Michael Hyde over for dinner sometime, so that would be an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Maybe I need to just take a little time to pull myself together. At least until this heavy, overwhelmed feeling goes away.

Comments

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon! Also, the decrease in traffic could be people reading your blog on Buzz, rather than here.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Kate, for the kind words, and for the suggestion about Buzz. That actually does make me feel a little better. :-)

[beholdsa.livejournal.com]

Does Buzz block embedded images in posts? There are more accurate (if more technically involved) ways to track readership and the source they are reading it from.

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

how do the traffic figures work? I usually read entries from the digest-format comfort of the friends page, rather than from the individual's page. I assume lots do this.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

So, "the report shows views of all pages in your journal and also views of your entries on other users’ Friends pages. You can exclude page views on Friends pages in other journals by clicking the sub-tab labeled Journal only. To see stats covering all page views, including your journal and your entries in others’ Friends pages, click the sub-tab labeled Total traffic."

"Page views — This figure shows views of your journal, including all pages and all of your entries (wherever they appear on LiveJournal). If you only want to see page views in your journal, click the sub-tab labeled Journal only. To see page views for all of your entries, including your entries in others’ Friends pages, click the sub-tab labeled Total traffic."

"All visitors — This figure shows all unique viewers of your entries, based on user cookies. So if someone reads your entry on both his or her Friends page and in your journal, he or she counts as only one visitor.
Note: The report tracks by user cookies, so if the same user views your entries on two different computers or on two different browsers, he or she will be counted twice."

"LiveJournal users — This figure shows all viewers who were logged in to LiveJournal when they viewed your journal or your entries via their own Friends pages. Here, unique is defined by the visitor’s LiveJournal username."

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

wow. complicated.

[laurion]

"I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo

Hit me like a ray of sun
Burning through my darkest night"

Ok, Beyonce was singing about a different halo. Sorry.

[valleyviolet.livejournal.com]

What kind of halo affect are we talking about? Between that and the timing of the headache and nausea that sounds suspiciously like a migraine to me.

Take some Advil and try to relax. Be careful about how much you're self medicating with caffeine. If you get addicted enough to start having withdrawal headaches it can be bad news. On the up side, if it is migraines, controlling your stress levels and getting more sleep can work wonders. :)

I hope you feel better soon!

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

I may be using the wrong word to describe the effect, but by "halo" I meant a spot on my field of vision that was kind of blurry and shiny.

Gosh, a migraine? How scary. I don't believe I've ever had them before. Still, regardless, less stress and more sleep would help me a lot in any case. :-)

[valleyviolet.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. Migraine "aura" effects can look like zigzags, glowing spots, flashing lines, wavy lines, or even a sort of weird kaleidoscopic effect over part of your vision (that's the one I usually see). Migraines aren't terribly dangerous unless you've had a drastic change in how often you have them. It sounds like this is more of an occasional thing.

A lot of people will have one or two headaches because of stress. My husband has had a handful in his life (we're talking like 4 ever) and I've lived with them as a chronic thing since I was in 2nd grade. If this is just a passing thing, it's no big deal, if it becomes more regular there are a lot of good options for treating them with minimal side effects.

In general, having a migraine isn't inherently doing damage to you, it's just miserable and unpleasant. You should take pain medicine though, because it helps to break the cycle of being irritated by sensory input (light, sound, etc.) that keeps the migraine going.