A Change is Gonna Come...

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes!  

~Hugh Prather

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Friday, February 24, 2017  marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life in two ways. It was my 9 year anniversary with the love of my life and it was my last day at the job that I had been employed with for 8.5 years. I decided to step out on faith and pursue a career change in a completely different field. 

I have been working at my new job for a week now and it has been going great.....HOWEVER.....it has my sleep schedule all sorts of messed up and I am NOT  a morning person, With this new position, I am having to get up as early as the "butt crack of dawn" as I call it lol Meaning I have to be to work at 5 and 6 am with  me getting up at 3:45am or 4:45am. I started on Sunday and worked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was exhausted and had no energy to do anything, My back was killing me but I didn't have a migraine, so I was thankful for that.

 I got too excited about not having a headache because I woke up with one this morning. I was anxious because I didn't know how I was going to react while at my new job. Well, let's just say...I survived.  Oh..pause...I forgot to say that I also started taking Topamax on Monday. Topamax is a preventative migraine medicine. So many people have negative things to say about Topamax but I believe in forming my own opinion. I read and appreciate what they have to say but not every one's body is the same.  OK...UN pause...Now, my theory is, I believe that I woke up with a migraine this morning because:1- my sleep schedule has changed   2-I wasn't eating at the same times as I usually do and 3-the weather has been different in my area triggering my sinuses.  Being chronically ill, our bodies react to change differently. It can set off our triggers or send us into a flare up. So what do we do?

 So often, we want to be "normal" or we want to be able to do what we once could. However, that is not the answer.  In the words of James P. Lewis "If you always do what you've always done,you'll always get what you've always got."  We have to adapt to our new "normal".

One way I adapted to my new "normal" was learning some of  my migraine triggers. There is an app called Migraine Buddy that is so AWESOME!!!!!   It is free and you can find it where you buy your apps. It is the number 1 migraine tracking app out right now.  While recording a migraine, it'll ask things such as the level of pain, methods of pain relief, possible triggers...etc. It will store all of that data in detailed reports to share with your doctors. It also offers other features such as automatic sleep detection or weather and pressure tracking.  You can also use Daily tracker to track your potential triggers everyday, even if you aren't having a migraine, to see which ones are the likely cause of your migraines. Migraine Buddy is what allowed me to see that I actually had so many migraines to be considered chronic.

With great change, comes great responsibility. We, the chronic community, need to he responsible enough to know when it's time to make a change! Love your body enough to help it change for the better.