another cool picture

Remember when I went to the neurologist, took valium, laid in a tube, and had an MRI done? See cool picture of my brain below if you've forgotten. Well, I just had my follow up appointment. What you are seeing here is a picture of the human brain vascular system. No, it's not mine. I just thought sinced I'd provided you with a view of my brain it would only be fair to follow it up with a really cool picture of blood vessels.

So my neurologist says that my blood vessels have a small amount of scarring on them, which is totally normal for someone who suffers from migraines. What isn't totally normal is that I don't have a lot more scarring, given that I've been fighting migraines for thirty years. With the exception of that small amount of scarring, my brain is very healthy. No tumors. No cysts. No growths. No water sacs. Nothin'. (Quite frankly, I was just plain pleased to see there was even a brain in there!)

So Soodle, Poodle, Roodle, and Noodle . . . you can put away those lists you were starting entitled, "The possessions of Mom's that I want when her head blows up," cuz apparently my brain is very healthy. Migraines just make me THINK it's going to blow up.

this is your brain on . . .

Raise your hand if you remember the commercial where someone cracks an egg into a sizzling hot frying pan, and says, "This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"

I went to a neurologist a couple of weeks ago to see if anything can be done about my chronic migraines. Now that I'm in school, it doesn't seem really accommodating to have a migraine once or twice a week. My neurologist prescribed some new medications. Fortunately, (did I really say fortunately?) I had a migraine yesterday to test these medications. I'm pleased to report that they worked like a dream. Now I'm not holding my breath, partly because I just like to breathe, and partly because I'm reserving judgment for the incidence of a few more migraines to see if it really is effective more than once.

As a part of my treatment, the doctor had me submit to an MRI. One of the pre-questions she asked me was, "Are you claustrophobic?" When the answer to that was an immediate yes, valium became mandatory. I guess if you wiggle around violently in the MRI tube, slap the sides, and scream to be released, the MRI doesn't produce a very good result. So today I went in for my MRI, they administered the valium and sent me through the tube. I was a model patient, me and my valium. We laid there like we were dead.

Now let's discuss the super cool picture. I think I've discovered the problem in my brain already. Please look kind of in the center of the thing. Do you see the alien crawling into my brain? One leg is down, the other all ready boosted inside, and this creature is crawling inside my brain. I'm pretty sure that's what that is. No wonder I have migraines. There is an alien residing in my brain.

Anyway, I'm awake now. The valium has totally worn off, I swear.

This is valium. This is your brain on valium. Any questions?

back to school

So I finally decided what I want to be when/if I grow up. This grandma’s going back to school in elementary ed, and today was the first day of school. I just wanted to let you know how I feel about this new venture. I found a picture that seems to portray my feelings perfectly, much better than words could ever do.

doggie booties

Remember when I talked about Christmas stockings for the dogs? I wasn't kidding. They really got stuffed stockings. Here's my daughter, Noodle, showing Chamine and Miley their gifts. They were really excited, sniffing like they were professional bomb sniffing dogs and they'd just discovered the mother lode.

And in Miley's stocking, were these four very adorable booties. Don't laugh. This is for real. See she has this nice fur coat, but her little toesies get cold when we walk. At least that's what I thought. She doesn't complain or shiver or anything like that. I just thought it would be a very nice thing for a mother to do to put socks on her child's bare feet when she takes her for a walk.

So yesterday I got these warm, comfy booties out for their maiden voyage around the block and began to place them on Miley's feet. She wiggled a bit at first, but then she succumbed to my authority and allowed the procedure. It wasn't too bad, and pretty soon I had secured all four booties. I let her go, and this is what I saw.

I guess she wasn't a big fan. Apparently, as I was putting them on, she was kicking them off. I tried, Miley. I guess you'll have to have frozen toes.

checking back in

So it would appear that I pretty much checked out for awhile here. I'm trying to form my excuses, but they are slow in coming. Let's see. I've been really busy. That's true. With Christmas and all. And then my sweet grandbaby coming. It was chaos at the funnest level possible. I loved every single moment of it. Christmas was really wonderful, with just one drawback. One of my sweet daughters couldn't be here because her employer thought she should take her turn and be around just after the holidays. That was really a bummer.

Which brings me to this. Speaking of my kids, I've been trying to keep them off my blog, pictures and names. I don't know if you've noticed, but they are never named. I've used only their titles: daughter, oldest daughter, youngest daughter, teenage daughter, grandbaby. Yeah, I'm pretty tricky if you haven't happened to notice. Also, I've kept their faces off, except my sweet granddaughter (there I go again) since I think that a baby looks pretty much like any baby, except of course to those who love her. That has kind of left me in a really limited situation since my life is really all about my kids pretty much.

Well, I took a little poll and my kids said it's okay to put their pictures on. But I've decided that just for the fun of it, and also to keep their real names from the Internet, I'm going to rename them. Now this took some thought, and like all thoughts that I have, my system for renaming them is slightly strange. Here's how it goes: I took the name that I usually call them, which maybe or maybe doesn't actually begin with the letter of their real name, and then added oodle to it because I just love them oodles and oodles. Don't quite get it? Let me show you. There's Soodle who is married to Joodle and has my sweet grandbaby who is Boodle. Then there's Noodle and of course there's Roodle who is married to Coodle and then there's Poodle. Kind of sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, huh? Now they aren't even necessarily in birth order there. In fact, they're not. So if you know me well and you know what I call my kids, you can figure out who's who; if not, well, it probably doesn't matter that much anyway.

And here's a picture of me with my sweet grandbaby, oh yeah, with Boodle, on her blessing day just last month. I love you oodles and oodles, Boodle.