The next day was a Sunday and all I can remember is the non-stop headache which was immune to Tylenol, Advil and Aleve. I slept most of the day while my husband worked around the yard, planting the flowers we had purchased the day before.
I remember passing by the window from time to time, watching him work, hoping he wouldn't ask me to help him. Whenever I heard the back door opening, I would get up and start folding laundry or pick up a broom to fool him into thinking that I was already so busy with my own chores. When the door closed, I returned to the recliner to doze.
My recliner was my new friend. It cradled me and held me gently while I slept through my caffeine withdrawal. It demanded nothing of me and was always there waiting for me when I needed the comfort of a silent support system.
I also remember turning to drink of another sort that day - water. The more water I drank, the more energy I had and I could sense a slight relief in my headache. I slept a little less that second day.
"How's your headache?" my husband asked as I swallowed some Aleve.
"Better!" I told him. "Someone pulled the axe out."
"Great!"
"Yeah, now I have a vice wrapped around my temples." But, I reasoned, a vice was an improvement, a step up. The headache was no longer debilitating and painful. It was just annoying. Annoying I could deal with. And tomorrow would be better. It had to be.
The next day we were going into Manhattan for our son's graduation at Radio City Music Hall. Just the thought of trains and subways and hot crowded streets made the vice tighten. How would I get through the long day tomorrow feeling like this?
To be continued...
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Giving Up Coffee: Day One
I planned to start my caffeine free life on a Saturday. I didn’t have a bookkeeping job until Tuesday afternoon. Three days should be enough time to detox myself from the effects of caffeine, I reasoned.
To be honest, I don’t remember much of the events of that first day. The headache started around 9:30 AM, dull at first, but ever present. By 10:30 AM, my ears had clogged up and my head felt like it was filling up with water.
My husband asked if I wanted to go to the nursery that morning to pick out some flowers to plant. I asked him to repeat the question because, although I heard the words, my brain hadn’t connected the dots; the fog building up in my head was getting thicker by the minute. I think I said yes, because next thing I realized I was sitting in the front seat of the car. We were moving in slow motion – like a dream.
I know I was walking through the nursery, but I felt like I was swimming underwater. Sounds were muffled, the sun was burning my eyes – even with sunglasses on; the colors of the flowers were too intense to look at directly. My husband kept asking me, “how’s this?” and “maybe these?”
“Yes, fine, anything,” I mumbled. Just get me out of here. At one point, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up – like horses do, so I held on tightly to the wagon and pushed with my arms, dragging my feet behind in a slow-mo shuffle. “Are we done yet?” I kept asking, like some four year old child.
“Wow!” my husband exclaimed on the way home. “Those plants were expensive; don’t you think?”
I heard the question, but my lips wouldn’t move. The part of the brain that controls speech was already asleep, the rest of my body would soon follow. I floated through the front door, not feeling my feet on the ground, and dumped my body into the recliner. My head was buzzing now, the headache was of migraine intensity, my eyes were pin holes trying to focus, there was a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach and sweat beads were building up around my forehead and upper lip. I gave up, too weak to hunt for the Tylenol, and closed my eyes.
I woke up a few hours later, drool dripping down the side of my mouth, stomach burning from hunger. “Is there an axe stuck in my head?” I asked my husband.
“What?!”
“That’s what it feels like,” I told him. “I feel like there is an axe stuck right through my head.” He ran upstairs to get the Extra-Strength Tylenol and handed me two. I ate lunch and returned to the recliner to sleep away the remainder of Day One off of caffeine. It had to get better tomorrow, I thought.
To Be Continued…
To be honest, I don’t remember much of the events of that first day. The headache started around 9:30 AM, dull at first, but ever present. By 10:30 AM, my ears had clogged up and my head felt like it was filling up with water.
My husband asked if I wanted to go to the nursery that morning to pick out some flowers to plant. I asked him to repeat the question because, although I heard the words, my brain hadn’t connected the dots; the fog building up in my head was getting thicker by the minute. I think I said yes, because next thing I realized I was sitting in the front seat of the car. We were moving in slow motion – like a dream.
I know I was walking through the nursery, but I felt like I was swimming underwater. Sounds were muffled, the sun was burning my eyes – even with sunglasses on; the colors of the flowers were too intense to look at directly. My husband kept asking me, “how’s this?” and “maybe these?”
“Yes, fine, anything,” I mumbled. Just get me out of here. At one point, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up – like horses do, so I held on tightly to the wagon and pushed with my arms, dragging my feet behind in a slow-mo shuffle. “Are we done yet?” I kept asking, like some four year old child.
“Wow!” my husband exclaimed on the way home. “Those plants were expensive; don’t you think?”
I heard the question, but my lips wouldn’t move. The part of the brain that controls speech was already asleep, the rest of my body would soon follow. I floated through the front door, not feeling my feet on the ground, and dumped my body into the recliner. My head was buzzing now, the headache was of migraine intensity, my eyes were pin holes trying to focus, there was a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach and sweat beads were building up around my forehead and upper lip. I gave up, too weak to hunt for the Tylenol, and closed my eyes.
I woke up a few hours later, drool dripping down the side of my mouth, stomach burning from hunger. “Is there an axe stuck in my head?” I asked my husband.
“What?!”
“That’s what it feels like,” I told him. “I feel like there is an axe stuck right through my head.” He ran upstairs to get the Extra-Strength Tylenol and handed me two. I ate lunch and returned to the recliner to sleep away the remainder of Day One off of caffeine. It had to get better tomorrow, I thought.
To Be Continued…
Friday, June 4, 2010
Giving Up Coffee :(
I guess what I miss most about giving up coffee is the morning ritual. Crazy as this may sound, I liked thinking that my day couldn’t start until I had at least 2 cups of coffee. Some mornings, the thought of a fresh hot cup of coffee was the only thing that got me out of bed. In the winter chill, huddled over the steaming cup, I would write in my journal in the wee hours of the morning. In the summer, I would go out on the deck with my mug of coffee and inhale the fragrant salt air blowing in from the Great South Bay. Salty air and coffee – it doesn’t get sweeter than that.
When my children were young and wanted to go to the park or the beach before they even ate breakfast, I told them, “Don’t bother me until I’ve had my coffee.” They understood that, and as long as I still had that cup in my hand, they kept busy by themselves for awhile. Sometimes I walked around with an empty cup just to stall them a little longer.
It is an excuse I’ve heard and even used myself at work when someone comes into my office before I’ve had a chance to take my coat off and settle in. “Can we hold off on this,” I tell them, “until I’ve finished my coffee? My neurons haven’t fully connected yet.” We share a knowing chuckle and the annoying person disappears for awhile.
I don’t know if it was psychological or true that coffee in the morning made it easier to deal with things. With a steaming cup next to my calculator, my sewing machine, or my laptop, I knew I could do anything. Coffee was a ritual, a habit, a comfort, my friend.
Recently I developed a condition called GERD, short for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. It’s the medical term for heartburn, or, agitta, as my father calls it. I lost sleep at night for a month, forcing me to drink more coffee during the day, which exacerbated the problem further. I developed a slow constant burn in my stomach, and whenever I fed it, a fire roared up. I wasn’t digesting my meals, no matter what I ate.
An upper endoscopy revealed everything was normal, but the doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid:
Coffee and caffeinated beverages (my friend)
Chocolate (my lover)
Carbonated Beverages (seltzer with lemon – my drink of choice)
Peppermint and peppermint tea (my favorite tea after dinner, Mentos!)
Citrus Fruits and Juices (love my navel oranges! And lemon ices!!)
Tomato Products (I’m Italian. Need I say more?)
Pepper (Put pepper on my toast in the morning. Love hot stuff.)
Fatty or fried foods (don’t care about these)
Alcoholic beverages (don’t drink ‘em)
“What’s left to eat?” I cried in disbelief on the ride home.
“I’m sure you can have coffee,” my husband said. “Just limit it to one cup a day.”
Was he kidding, or what? May as well give it up altogether, I thought. Besides, I reasoned, if I had to give up my favorite foods, I may as well suffer the full blunt of the blow and say farewell to my longtime friend and companion – my coffee.
…To be continued
When my children were young and wanted to go to the park or the beach before they even ate breakfast, I told them, “Don’t bother me until I’ve had my coffee.” They understood that, and as long as I still had that cup in my hand, they kept busy by themselves for awhile. Sometimes I walked around with an empty cup just to stall them a little longer.
It is an excuse I’ve heard and even used myself at work when someone comes into my office before I’ve had a chance to take my coat off and settle in. “Can we hold off on this,” I tell them, “until I’ve finished my coffee? My neurons haven’t fully connected yet.” We share a knowing chuckle and the annoying person disappears for awhile.
I don’t know if it was psychological or true that coffee in the morning made it easier to deal with things. With a steaming cup next to my calculator, my sewing machine, or my laptop, I knew I could do anything. Coffee was a ritual, a habit, a comfort, my friend.
Recently I developed a condition called GERD, short for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. It’s the medical term for heartburn, or, agitta, as my father calls it. I lost sleep at night for a month, forcing me to drink more coffee during the day, which exacerbated the problem further. I developed a slow constant burn in my stomach, and whenever I fed it, a fire roared up. I wasn’t digesting my meals, no matter what I ate.
An upper endoscopy revealed everything was normal, but the doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid:
Coffee and caffeinated beverages (my friend)
Chocolate (my lover)
Carbonated Beverages (seltzer with lemon – my drink of choice)
Peppermint and peppermint tea (my favorite tea after dinner, Mentos!)
Citrus Fruits and Juices (love my navel oranges! And lemon ices!!)
Tomato Products (I’m Italian. Need I say more?)
Pepper (Put pepper on my toast in the morning. Love hot stuff.)
Fatty or fried foods (don’t care about these)
Alcoholic beverages (don’t drink ‘em)
“What’s left to eat?” I cried in disbelief on the ride home.
“I’m sure you can have coffee,” my husband said. “Just limit it to one cup a day.”
Was he kidding, or what? May as well give it up altogether, I thought. Besides, I reasoned, if I had to give up my favorite foods, I may as well suffer the full blunt of the blow and say farewell to my longtime friend and companion – my coffee.
…To be continued
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