Caffeine

An unintended side effect of this broken nose and surgery is that I have given up caffeine.
I know, it's as hard to make the leap between runnning and broken nose as it is between broken nose and caffeine.

Here I am getting an espresso hit in Paris.

Well, I did indeed fall while running and land on my nose breaking it. And now, I've given up caffeine due to the broken nose.
On Friday, the doctor scheduled surgery at 1:30 to put the bones back in place. That meant I couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight. Since I'm not a little kid, I thought this wouldn't be a big deal. I mean, I do have some self control.
I was up at my usual 5, getting things done on the computer. Around the time Tucker woke up for school, my head had started to ache a bit. I'd planned on running a few errands that morning to keep my mind off everything. By 9 a.m. I was lying on the couch with a pounding headache. At 11:30, half an hour before I was to appear for surgery, I was throwing up from the lack of caffeine. Not that I had anything in my stomach...

The morning after surgery, as I stood in front of the espresso maker, remembering how miserable I had felt without caffeine, and knowing that it was currently out of my system, I reached for the decaf.
If you'd asked me, I would have said my favorite thing about coffee in the morning is the flavor. I mix it with steamed milk and add a little sugar. Mmmm.
But, for some reason, the decaf coffee has not tasted as good.
For now, I'll stick with decaf, until the memories of withdrawal fade away. Then I'll probably be back to regular again.

Midnight Headache

I was 5 minutes late for work this morning. I really have no excuse, but if I was going to blame it on something, I'd probably say I shouldn't have sat down and had a bowl of cereal before rushing out the door. Or maybe I shouldn't have added that half hour of core exercise to my workout. Or maybe it was the 4-mile run. But most likely, it was the fact that I got up at 6:11 instead of 5 a.m. That was because I was awakened at 11 by a sick kid.

I went to bed at 10 with big plans. I'd get up at 5. Write for an hour, run then do P90X before getting ready for work.
Around 11, I heard Tucker in the kitchen. He had gone down to the basement to watch TV around 9 and had fallen asleep. I didn't wake him when I went to bed.
He stumbled to my bed and sat down with a cup of water and two ibuprofen in his hands.
"Mom," he was out of breath. "Mom. I have the worst headache."
I put my hand up to his neck and felt how clammy he was.
"Help me, Mom," he said. "I can't stand this."
He slid down on the bed beside me. I wasn't very helpful. It sounded like a migraine. I told him he'd probably have to sleep it off. He could try to swallow the ibuprofen.
I squeezed what I thought might be a pressure point between his finger and thumb, but he couldn't be still the necessary 2 minutes. I tried the other hand.
"I'm going to throw up," he said and headed to the bathroom.
I finally got him to take the ibuprofen as he knelt before the toilet and that's when he started puking. A lot.
I spread a sheet on the couch and got him to move to the couch. I put an empty trash can beside him. I did the pressure point thing again. He lay still. A wet cloth for his forehead. He moaned in pain.
"I think I need to go to the hospital," he said.
As a mother, you wonder. What if I screw this up? I wasn't thinking meningitis. I was thinking migraine. So I sat beside him, holding his hand, until he relaxed some.
I texted warnings to his siblings and father who weren't home yet.
"DON'T TURN ON THE LIGHTS!" "DON'T MAKE ANY NOISE."
Around midnight he fell asleep and I switched my alarm to 6:05 a.m. Tucker was awake this morning as I got ready for work. He still had the echo of a headache. He ate some crackers.
So that's why I was late for work this morning.
What would you have done? Would you have taken him to the ER?

Runner's Hangover

On Saturday morning, we ran 9.5 miles.
When I left the house, I was already tired and dreading it. If my friends hadn't been waiting for me, I would have skipped. That's the reason to exercise with friends, isn't it?
I took some vitamin B12 for energy and ate two shot bloks on the way to meet my friends. Shot bloks are like gummy candies that are "electrolyte chews" to give energy and replenish the things we sweat out.
Princess joined us for our morning run, so there were four of us. Princess just bought a new house and moved so she has a legitimate excuse for missing some of our runs. She also is a single mom with a son, so she always has a good reason to sleep in rather than run with us.
We ran our normal route of 7.5 miles, talking and laughing the whole way. I ate two more shot bloks at the turn around, but I wasn't feeling as miserable as I had anticipated.
We went on past the parking lot an extra mile south before we turned around. That made for a total of 9.5 miles. The training schedule called for 9 miles and we're trying to keep that .5 edge.
I "sprinted" the last half mile or so, but only because if I didn't run faster and finish then I was going to stop and walk. I felt good at the end and relieved it was over.
When I got home, I drank more water and sat down to finish reading a book. Slowly I began to feel like a dishrag that had been rung one way then the other. Nothing really hurt, I was just exhausted.
My husband got up and came into the living room where I was lying on the couch. I explained why I was taking a nap at 9 in the morning. My daughter got up and I repeated the scenario.
The rest of the day, the headache slowly built. Dehydration? Possibly. Maybe I should have had Gatorade after my run. Allergy headache? Always a possibility in Ohio. Hormonal-related? The timing was right.
I pulled myself together for a cookout at Earl's sister's house then spent the rest of the day doing nothing. Grace and Tucker stayed home with me since they had been out late the night before and I was in bed early, hoping to vanquish the headache with a good night's sleep.
The next morning, a trace remained, but I didn't even notice it as Grace and I did our morning core workout.
Is it worth it to continue training for the marathon, even though I don't plan to run the marathon, if I'm going to face days when I feel like a limp noodle?

Too Sick

Too sick to lie on the couch and watch TV. Too sick to read. Too sick to talk on the phone. That's how I felt yesterday. I could only lie in my bed with my hand over my face grasping the sides of my head. That and getting up to vomit were my only activities.
I woke up with a headache. Truthfully, it felt like what I remember from long ago hangover headaches. I decided to get over it. I had a glass of water while Grace got ready for swim practice. Then I popped two Advil before I woke Spencer up for basketball. I dressed, shoved my computer in a bag and determined to go to the coffee shop to write after I dropped him at school.
"Uhh," I moaned as we drove toward the high school.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"My head hurts so much I feel like I'm going to throw up."
I let him out and watched him trudge through the snow. Then I turned left toward the coffee shop. I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, fighting the headache and nausea before I drove back home. I sat in the garage for a few minutes.
That's when I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the one. It means you had better run for the bathroom.
I got out of the car and grabbed my computer. I hurried up the sidewalk. Nope. I wasn't going to make it.
Tucker had carefully shuffled his name in the snow the night before. But it said TUKER with a little carat between the U and K to add the C he had forgotten. "Sorry, Tuck," I thought as I bent over the snow and threw up. I hoped none of my neighbors were outside.
I continued the walk to the house. Darn! I had locked the door. I puked once more in the brick flower box beside the back door. It was covered with snow so I hoped it would kind of wash things away.
When I finished in the bathroom, I threw my clothes on the floor and climbed into bed. My husband was still in bed.
"Don't talk to me. Don't touch me. I'm throwing up," I said.
And he said, "What?"
That's where I spent the day, vaguely wondering if this was a migraine with vomiting, or a stomach virus with headache.
The headache was definitely the worst part. Each time I leaned over the toilet, I thought, "Oh, please, don't let the kids catch this." They don't have the pain tolerance I do and I was miserable.
So yesterday, I didn't work on my novel, I didn't work out and I didn't get to see Spencer's basketball game,
I ate and drank nothing until about 6:30 when Tucker brought me half an inch of Seven Up.
About 8:30, I ventured out to the couch to watch the Wisconsin/Univ. of Miami game, only leaving it a few times to throw up again.
This morning, the headache was waiting for me, but not as severe. I feel it prodding me gently above my left eye. I might not get a workout in, but I've already had a cup of tea, so I hope for a more productive day.
Ugh! I hate being sick.