Friday, January 28, 2011

Headache


Abandoned in The Dalles, originally uploaded by Martina.

If my head were a house, it would be the one in the picture above. Today it head aches like someone has been repeatedly hitting me with a bag of hammers. My neck, shoulders and arms feel compact, like pieces of paper that have been wadded into tight balls. I feel like I need to be stretched. It was one of those days where I could think of nothing at work but going home and taking a hot bath before flaking out on the couch with a dog and a quilt for comfort.

I have been pretty tired lately. At first I thought I was not getting enough protein, but I think the headache and fatigue are probably just stress. I was looking through my flickr pictures earlier and noticably absent were any vacation pictures from 2010. This is not because I forgot to upload any or even to take any, but because I never took a vacation last year. I was so busy working, I didn't even notice!

This year, I will have to remedy that. Maybe it's time to resurrect my annual birthday road trip. Or maybe I need to plan a real vacation to somewhere better reached by plane for later in the year. Maybe I need to do BOTH. Either way, my headache epiphany underscores my feeling that more non-work activity need to be ushered back into my life, because a life where you don't even notice you never took a vacation is just wrong!

2 comments:

Jen said...

I'm so sorry for the headache! A new trick I've figured out for those kinds of creeping up your neck headaches is to take an excedrin along with two advil. Drink a lot of water and maybe put a hot water bottle up on your shoulders. (so endeth Dr. Jen's Unsolicited Headache Advice!)

As for the rest: YES, you need some vacation! I'm glad you're thinking of it. Now you just need to make it so!

Martina said...

Doh. I didn't see this before. I will have to remember the excedvil cure. I used to never get headaches, but seem more prone to them since my job changed. I asked for a week off in March. It's amazing how much it helps to have something to look forward to.