Overlapping Flares

Symptoms Today:

1. fatigue (of course!)
2. Sinus Pain/Pressure
3. Stiff/Achy Joints
4. Dry Itchy Skin
5. Weight Gain (Is that a symptom? I feel my pants get tighter every day!)

Today is actually not so bad. This past weekend, I had a migraine that started Friday night and ended Monday night. How many hours is that? 72 hours?! I had to miss work on Monday but I am thankful that it went away by Tuesday because my students are STAAR testing this week. (Texas state assessments) Believe me it's a big deal and I had already been getting crap about "possibly missing work" on these days as if I pick and choose when I get sick.

So I have been stuck all day in the class watching students take a standardized test and I am not allowed to even read while they test. (4 hours long!!!!) So, naturally I was falling asleep. Even while  I walked around the room my head would start to plop down. Thank God I had snacks.

Well, as I was walking around trying to keep my eyes open I started to think of my flares and they remind me of something terrible I experienced 5 times: childbirth and contractions. I remember they hooked you up to a machine and you could see the contractions on the screen. It would start to rise kind of forming a steep mountain peek then fall as the pain subsided, but the problem I started noticing with my contractions was that one was not even over before another one began! That is how I feel with these flares. Last week right before my migraine episode, my mouth became full of mouth sores/ulcers. Then came the migraine, fatigue, etc, etc... But, I never felt any relief or rest from the flare before. Is this happening to anyone else?

Things I am grateful for today:

• I got out of bed this morning
• I dressed my son and put him on the bus
• I made it to morning duty semi-on time
• One student actually read a book and asked to borrow it  (Yay! You can't imagine how happy it makes me)
• Of course, my husband and kids
• My mom because she wakes up early to drive to my house to take care of my daughter while we work