Clarinex, migraines and tender mercies

My life is a special breed of crazy these days, but somehow it's working for us. A year and a bit ago when DH was sustained as bishop (can it possibly have been over a year already?), a ward friend whose husband has done this already told me that the blessings would come, that it would be hard to say how, but the blessings would come. Well, of course it would be nice if the blessings were perfectly behaved children (yeah, not happening), but we are blessed with a wonderful family who has adopted mine and sits with us each Sunday. It would be lovely if DH's job were unstressful and gave plentiful raises, but despite CRAZYstress and a paycut, he has job security because they need him so much and there is enough to pay the bills. To me, these are the obvious blessings that I've been seeing all along.

Lately, things have been even cookier because DH's hours have been worse and more stressful, we are now doing the long school commute (which when the work hours are worst, DH can no longer pitch in to mitigate), and I have gone from my usual every other month migraine (before the bishopness the migraines were once in a blue moon and I even went for several years between a few babies without ANY), to monthly and then to biweekly and then to weekly migraines interspersed with some new breed of migraine without all my usual auras (when I was a kid, I called them martian spaceships) and dysphasia (where I can't talk right and absolute nonsense comes out of my mouth instead of what I mean to say, really, a treat for all) to warn me, but instead a speed straight to the searing pain. This has made it tricky to drive, tricky to keep a house clean and running, tricky to want to do anything except curl up on the couch keeping half an eye on children to make sure no one is actually killing anyone. I have been exhausted, discouraged and doubtlessly rather unpleasant to be around and at a loss as to what to do.

My migraines usually have reasonable triggers--stress (can't change it), wonky weather--storms, monsoon season, hurricane season, etc (haven't had anything but sun and wind here), lack of sleep (see stress), and hormones, like from pregnancy (NOTHING to report!). So, I was stumped, thus the discouragement. And then in the midst of muscling under and crawling along, (because really what else could I do?) a thought came quietly to my head. It came so quietly that I didn't pay any attention really for a few days until it noodled around in there for a while. The thought was, "take some allergy meds." This was a funny thought to me, because I haven't been plagued by any traditional allergy symptoms. But, what could it hurt, right? I happened to have some Clarinex samples from a bout with tinnitus earlier in the summer and I remembered that they didn't make me drowsy or give me any of the other less desirable side effects that antihistamines can bring. So I tried it. No headaches. Not one. And then after a week or so, I forgot a day and nothing happened, so I purposely didn't take the second day's pill and I began to get the zingy beginnings of a headache. Hmm. Back to the pills; no more headaches. And then I did it again--forgot a day and then tested it the second day followed by the zingy beginnings of a headache I can't shake. Duh! I'm not so bright. So, I'm back to my pills. I am converted and I called and got an actual prescription for them now.

So why do I tell you these tales of my neurological oddities? Because this incident is merely the latest capstone in the feeling I've been having of immense blessedness. I have been buoyed up. I have been blessed with a divine serendipity wherein the things that need to work do and the things that don't work go peacefully by the wayside and I am okay with it. I have been on time more and less harried in that late/overscheduled way (no things are not perfect, there is still tardiness and frustration, just less). I have been in many ways--none of them mine--more Zen, more at peace. I have been feeling like that eighties mission farewell song--"in the hollow of thy hand." Amidst all my failings and ingratitudes and imperfections, He has given me this and amidst all of the craziness and migraines and stubborn prepubescent daughters, stubborn near 2 yr olds and crazy boys in the middle, I have still managed to feel and recognize this grace. For it is GRACE.

I am a worst case scenario thinker. It's how I manage my anxiety and process possibilities. But it leads me to see failings and imperfections far more than hope and progress. So, for me to see and feel this serendipity is to me a second gift of grace altogether and precious all its own. And it was upon finally seeing it and acknowledging it, that the very next day, in the midst of a migraine, that I received the clarinex inspiration.

Tender mercies, I tell you, they're how I survive.