Dealing with Migraine and Depakote
What a journey of mind and body!
I was healthy a couple months ago, especially for a seventy-nine year old woman.
I walked a mile nearly every day, did yoga most days, and meditated.
Then my migraine prescription (Aemovig) stopped working.
My neurologist prescribed Depakote to stop my migraine cycle. It made me as sluggish as a slow loris.
Which is why I missed a newsletter last month.
I’ve decreased Depakote, and hopefully, a new migraine medication in May will keep the headaches away.
These last months provided an excellent opportunity to practice what I preach: staying in the moment, meditating, and not getting bogged down by “poor me.”
In other words, it was what a friend and I jokingly called AFGE, or Another F’ing Growth Experience.
MY BOOKS
Somehow I managed to go to the Tucson Festival of Books both days in March: Saturday at the Indie Authors’ Pavilion and Sunday at the Women Writing the West booth.
Many thanks to El Con Book Club members for buying a number of copies.
The Second book in the series, War And Preservation, has been edited and I have just completed proofreading.
INTERESTING HISTORY
I am reading a fascinating book by my favorite history writer, David McCullough— . Did you know that the Brooklyn Bridge was completed by a woman in 1883? Her husband, Washington Roebling, was the engineer/designer (after his engineer father died), then he became ill after suffering the bends from going so far down into the river in one of the pillars. For several years thereafter his wife, Emily, an engineer herself, went to the bridge with his orders and met with manufacturers regarding fabrication of parts.
The PBS series, “The Gilded Age,” included her in a few episodes.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaege. Charles and Addington Gaunt must find their free- spirited brother, Simon, who has gone missing in the wilds of the American West. They enlist the services of a guide, enigmatic Jerry Potts, half Blackfoot, half Scottish, who suffers his own painful past. They are joined by Lucy Stoveall, a woman filled with rage and sorrow over the loss of her young sister Madge who was brutally murdered. The group is joined by a jumble of other characters en route, each of whom are forced to confront their own demons. But at the novel’s centre is a love story. Vanderhaeghe glides effortlessly through the patois and frontier talk, faultlessly switching from cultured English characters to American roughnecks to Scots-Canadians, and the natural prairie landscape is evoked brilliantly.
The Stark Beauty of Last Things by Celine Keating. I’m always apprehensive when reading and reviewing a book by someone I know. What if I don’t like it?
I needn’t have been concerned—lovely writing, characters to root for, a plot to hold my interest and, most of all, through sensory narrative I feel I’ve lived on the northeast coast for four full seasons. Such deft description and feeling for an area (Montauk) I’ve seldom read. Here is a fellow environmentalist who loves wild things and places and is familiar with the conflict between land developers, community, and environmentalists.
I’m going to hang on to this one for the day I curl up in my favorite reading chair and return to the coast.
Plus there is a new book site available online—Shepherd. It’s loaded with good books recommended by over 10,000 authors with reviews of why they liked the book. Therefore, it’s unlikely you will buy a poorly edited book or “dud” like on another site I’m aware of. Shepherd is like a library where you find the books you love but don’t buy them there—the site is not attempting to sell you a book. Plus it’s organized so you can easily find the book you want. Yes, my book is there.
Onward to the Merry Month of May!
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