The bees knees…

July 12, 2015 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

We are getting bees!!

It started like this:

Mom and I were driving home the other day when she asked me if that man in our alley was wearing a hazmat suit. I peered beyond her and declared it was a beekeeper!!

We immediately halted the car, rolled down the windows, and fairly mobbed him with questions. He is an Urban Farmer and beekeeper. He has a hive a few doors down from us and soon will put one in our yard!

He does all the maintenance and beekeeping while we get honey and bees!! My plants will have more bees and I can finally feel like I’m doing more for the vanishing bee population than just planting flowers.

Best of all my kids will get as-local-as-you-can-get honey for their allergies and they will get to learn about co-existing with these amazing time creatures that do so much for our food supply.

Oliver and I have already been setting out water for the neighborhood bees and we sit in the garden and watch them line up to drink. Their tiny furry bodies rest on the edge of the water pool as they delicately sip. Yum. He is super excited to have a hive of our own and has been telling me all about how to stay still when they land on you so they don’t feel threatened.

I plan to put up a page on the hive’s progress so keep your eyes out!

Update:

They are here!!

The Sooky Foo Honey Company brought our lovely little hive early this afternoon!

It’s so wonderful to see them out in the garden. Many of our neighbors have stopped by to see them and the dog has already been checking them out.

Squee!! We have bees!

Chronic Pain, Connection, headache, Migraine

Misery loves company…

July 10, 2015 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

I met another migraine sufferer last night and he and I spent a few hours discussing various symptoms, treatments, and attitudes about migraines.

It was wonderful.

It puts me in an odd place to feel happiness at learning someone else is going through this. I recognize it’s not that I would wish this on anyone so much as it is having the opportunity to discuss my situation with someone who truly understands it. Talking triptans and DHE derivatives and triggers with anyone who doesn’t have migraines doesn’t seem like a good plan.

Truthfully, discussing migraines with people who don’t have migraines isn’t usually a good plan. I either get the infamous “Have you tried…” or I get “Wow. How do you do it? I couldn’t do that.” The former is something I sit through because everyone means well and is trying to help. The latter just makes me feel badly. I’m no superhero. I do it because the other option is to die.

I don’t want to die.

So having a discussion with another person who understands aura and triggers and the crazy side effects of all the weird medications they try on you is awesome, even though a part of me feels like a bad person for celebrating that another person has this too!

It just goes to show you that misery truly does love company. It’s so nice to find another person who feels your pain.

Just me

Insane in the dream brain…

July 9, 2015 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

Last night I had a dream that I began drawing a comic strip about my brain.

Unfortunately, my dream self is a much better artist than my actual self.

In my dream comic, a brain on legs with funky little eyeballs was doing random things to me throughout the day such as;

1. Turning to me while I am driving and shooting a camera flash off repeatedly.

2. Tightening a vise around my head while I am drinking my coffee, then looking at me and rudely saying “What?!”

3. Playing jump rope on my skull while I am trying to sleep.

4. Poking sharp points into my temples every few minutes and then pretending he didn’t do it.

(Hmmm… not sure why my brain is depicted in my dreams as he…)

I cannot decide what the dream means. Was it just a nightmare with a visual manifestation of my migraines or is my subconscious telling me to quit law and go to art school so I can better express, through comic art, the problems faced by migraine patients around the world?