Psychedelic Sunday

After a hiatus of about a year, my migraines came back with a vengeance yesterday.

For those of you who didn't know, it's possible to have a migraine with little or no pain. Yesterday, I was innocently watching TV, when I began to notice that when I looked at a face, their right eye was missing. There was a blind spot instead of an eye. This was different. Usually, there is a blind spot right in the middle.

Almost two years ago, I had a round of problems with retinal detachment, and I was worried at first that something like that might be happening.

The blind spot looks like the effect you get when you happen to look at a camera just as it's flash goes off. 

Anyway, it was followed by a dimming of all sight, almost like coming into a dark room from a bright, sunlit day.

Eventually, the blind spot spread and worked itself into a crescent on the left side. The Wikipedia entry calls it "scintillating scotoma." It moves around and gets bigger as it goes in my experience.

Eventually, after one long, intense psychedelic round, it all died down and then started all over again. This time, the scotoma included colors, which has never happened to me before. Bright yellows, reds, and turquoises in zigzag lines that move and seem to include prisms that distort sight, and they move, too. And I've never gotten two of them in quick succession before.

I had a mild headache with all this, but luckily sidestepped most of the pain phase. I usually don't get the migraine pain with the visual effects. When I get migraine pain, it's usually a separate thing. Usually, I get either a migraine headache or a visual migraine. I have gotten both, but usually not at the same time.

I was thinking that this may be nature's way of punishing me for never taking drugs during the 60s and 70s.

So, a lot of yesterday was bad. The visual effects kept me from being able to watch TV, read or knit for most of the evening. Actually, I could do these things, but couldn't see well to do them.

I'm thinking that all this may have had to do with the fact that they turned on the heat in my apartment building on Thursday. In spite of the fact that the heat is on, I haven't turned on the heat in my apartment yet. Actually, I've never turned on the heat in the two years I've been here. I suspect that the people in the apartment below me turn on the heat until it's 120 degrees or more in their apartment. My kitchen floor feels so warm it's almost uncomfortably hot if I walk there with bare feet. Even with the window open, it was well over 80 degrees in here yesterday afternoon. But I left the window open all night, and it's now about 65 degrees in here. I'm not sure I want to turn the heat on because it will warm up this afternoon, although maybe not as much as I think because there's no sun out. The forecast was for "partly cloudy." I've seen the "cloudy" part and am ready for the "partly" part.

So, the windows have been open and letting in the ragweed and grass pollen. Ragweed has caused painful migraines before, but never visual ones, although I have been dislexic (another ragweed symptom) all day today. And the medicine the doctor prescribed should have made it impossible to get allergy symptoms for the next month.

So, I don't know what's happening.

************************

I've been working diligently on the Celtic sweater, and in spite of lots of knitting, there're so many stitches in each row that it takes a lot of knitting to see any visible progress. So, a photo isn't really going to show anything noticeable.

Parts that are done include the hood, shoulders, sleeves (including the I-cord), the entire cross on the back and the body to within an inch of the waist.

Pockets will be coming up soon, and the bottom shaping has begun on the sides, so the knots in that space will be happening soon, too. Lots of nice, restful knitting happening soon.

I think I'd rather do a braid on the pocket edge this time instead of the cable I did before. Which means I'll have to invent one. The braid on the front is just too wide for the edge of the pocket. Oh, well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

****************************

Tonight we have our usual line-up of Chuck, Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC, and Lost running for four hours on SciFi.

This should be enough to keep anyone busy.

Here's something pretty to enjoy:

Have a great day!