Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Anxiety

I just left work without finishing the story I was working on for tomorrow.
It was -- well it just wasn't my day.
I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the inauguraton, but when I joked to my editor that I didn't think Obama would share with me the note Bush left for him, as per presidential tradition, Dan's ears perked up.
He wanted me to write about the tradition, suggested I call the LBJ library, etc.
Well, it turned out the tradition only goes back to Reagan, but in looking for more information on it, I came across a bunch of other inagural traditions started by various presidents, so I thought I could put together a nifty little story on that.
I even thought I could bring "real people" (which is what journalists call people who aren't elected officials, bureaucrats or other expert types) into it by asking random people if they had any inaugural traditions of their own (getting trashed, eating seafood, whatever...).
But from the start, it went nowhere. I looked up the names of a bunch of presidential historians, and tried to call and/or email them.
I called our local university, was referred to a particular professor who was not available. So I left a message.
In the meantime, as I said in my last post, an off-key big brass band started playing in my head.
I did everything I could think of to get my story together before everything went south, but I couldn't seem to get any sources.
I guess I could have tried to do it all off the Internet and see if it would fly, but they seem to frown on that sort of thing.
In any case, my ablity to make progress deteriorated as the pain advanced.
I knew I really just needed to go home, but I hated to go to Dan and beg off my story.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
HATE IT.
I always feel like people think I'm making it up anyway, when I say I have a headache.
I decided to keep trying though, and I finally managed to get a Washington D.C. presidential historian on the phone live and in person.
He immediately cut me off. He was tired and chilled to the bone, he'd been up since before dawn blah blah blah.
I couldn't even bring myself to beg.
I hung up and went to Dan and told him I'd tried, and my head was killing me and I didn't have any more try left in me.
He was pretty nice about it. But he made some comment about seeing a doctor.
Well, I just saw a doctor, who gave me Seasonique, which, after I read about it on the Internet, I was too scared to try.
After giving it some more thought, I decided to give it a try next month after my period.
Of course, I didn't tell Dan all this. I just said I'd been to doctors, and all they ever do is throw drugs at it, and there are all sorts of other issues with drugs, like rebound headaches, which I'd already done and it wasn't pleasant, but then again, nothing was really pleasant anymore, so I'd have to come up with something, then I burst into tears and rushed away.
It's been ages since I cried, and I didn't want to today, because since crying has always been something that's given me a headache, I figured if I already had one, it would make it worse.
I cried half the way home (and thank God didn't get in an accident).
I'm just afraid. I'm afraid the headaches will get worse and I won't be able to work, then I guess I'd have to move in with my mom.
I love my mom, but living with her is another thing entirely.
I feel so stupid.
I'm just in this very unpleasant spot -- not really sick enough to be considered disabled, but not really well enough to function adequately.
I didn't really want to admit it's getting worse, but I think it is.
And I don't know what to do about it.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Sarah,
    I saw your blog mentioned on the forum. I understand the need to just sound off. I have a migraine blog too but lately my head has been so bad I haven't been able to post.
    I can send the link if you want to visit.
    Pen

    ReplyDelete