One week down.

Ah, life is good.
It's 6:30 a.m., I'm just about ready to head off to work and begin yet another glorious day of bringing home the bacon. It's also the start of a new month (so I get to crank out the monthly reports & distribute accordingly)! I'm a bit worried, though...

I guess it truly started 7 or 8 years ago? I'd had a couple migraines as a child and according to my doctors I must have had quite a few ear infections as well. My mother's father, mother and I've recently learned my father's father suffered from migraines (of one sort or another-trade you Grandpa Nielsen?)

Anyway, in the past 3 years I've grown to dislike, no that's not quite strong enough a word...HATE going to Church.

It's not the Church part, or the people, it's the perfumes that naturally come out when ladies get dressed up and put on their Sunday best. The perfumes, you see trigger my migraines.

We've made it a habit to get to Church 30 minutes+ early, sneak in the back way and sit up front, just to avoid walking through a cloud of flowery "goodness" (edited for content). Likewise I cannot go into some of the smellier stores out there (bedbath & beyond, any craft store and the pot pouri isle of your local Wal-Mart. If I do, 20-30 minutes later I'm being visited by my long-time companion MIGRAINE.

So, back to Church. I've decided it doesn't actually matter if we show up early or late, sit way up front or on the back row, or even in a foyer. The perfumes have been worn for year after year, decade after decade, and the ladies have sat everywhere, leaving traces of the perfume embedded in the upholstery. Now we all know the Church gets cleaned...but I've never seen the pews being deep/steam cleaned, have you? No, so when we sit down, and 20 minutes after sitting down my right eye starts to go, I've decided it must be the perfumes in the fabric. About time for sacrament I feel the worms crawling in my skull and before the closing pray is offered I'm on the verge of dry-heaving...it's about this time I either tell Eva I'm going home or visit the bathroom (before the meeting lets out).

If I do make it through Sacrament, I've got to go to Sunday school...and there's no avoiding the perfume clouds or older ladies there (we sit up front in Sacrament...which means we've got to wait for everyone else to get up and go..then I get to walk through their flowery-migraine-starting mess....

I guess I never clarified what's got me worried (from the first paragraph). I've had a couple bad migraine weeks lately, and we're moving into the bad time of year when the trees and bushes I'm allergic to start sending out pollen. I'm worried I'll be experiencing a few week-longers as I have every year for the past 3-4 years. Those are no fun, no fun at all.