by This morning I called my aunt for her 72nd birthday. She seems remarkably good these days when I talk to her, but she still has episodes of severe depression and her world has become very small. That’s sad. I wish there was some way she could escape that cycle.
Sunday was a shocker of a day for me. I’d struggled all night with medium-level sinus pain, which became more severe during my lesson in the morning. I was begging for the clock to tick round to twelve and to be alone. When my student left, the pain became unbearable. Screwdriver rammed right up my nose. Pure torture. It was a sunny day and I staggered over to the curtains to block out the light as best I could. I tried pacing around; it was too painful to either sit or stand. Then I stumbled to the sink where I was sick. It took two hours for the pain to subside. I felt shattered and feeble for the rest of the afternoon, and it took until my 8pm Skype lesson to properly enter the world of the living again. My student gave me the name of a Bucharest-based specialist he thought I should get in touch with. But then, after reading a few websites, it dawned on me: maybe these aren’t sinus headaches after all. Maybe they’re migraines. I have all the symptoms, plus the family history.
Fortunately these bouts of excruciating pain don’t occur too often for me. That isn’t the case for my father, who has suffered from crippling migraines since he was a teenager, and has had headaches on a daily basis since about the time he got out of hospital. I spoke to him last night. He said that if they continue like this, his life will effectively be over. A permanent cloud, shrouding everything. The time zone change meant I could speak to Dad while Mum was at golf, without having to stay up past midnight. I get on very well with Mum these days, but occasionally it’s nice to speak to him when she isn’t there.
I also had a quick chat to my brother, who surprised and delighted me when he said he and his wife plan to come to Timișoara next April. It would be a pleasure to have them here.
It’s looks like the UK will be having an election in December. We might see a three-figure Tory majority. What a bloody fantastic Christmas present that would be. Not.
