Spinal Headaches

It turns out that if you have two spinal taps in three days and have over 10 ml of spinal fluid removed, you are subject to spinal headaches. Tim had four days of spinal headaches to endure after the Halloween treatment. He was a trooper, though. In spite of his spinal headache, he took Brendan Trick-or-Treating on Friday night. He acted as a Boy Scout merit badge counsellor for Theo's scout troop on Saturday. Then he gave up and spent Sunday and Monday on the couch pushing the fluids (the only cure for spinal headaches other than time.)

Tuesday was election day. Tim took the morning off to vote (yeah Obama!) He had planned to go into work Tuesday afternoon, but his headache came back while we were at the polling place. So it was back to the couch. Tuesday was a beautiful day, sunny and seventy. In November. In Chicago! So I took advantage of the weather to rake the leaves. Tim got off the couch long enough to teach me how to mow the lawn.

It was a great relief to get the yard cleaned up. One of the hard things about fighting an illness is the loss of control. You can plan to mow the yard, but treatment or it's side effects can totally derail those plans. I am always perpetually behind on the simple household chores like housecleaning, laundry, yard work, paying the bills, etc. That does nothing for my stress levels. The first year Tim had leukemia, he got very sick before mowing the lawn. At least this time, I wouldn't have that problem.