Today's yard work & after-effects

Yard work & observations

This morning was cool and dry enough for me to be able to get some yard work done. I didn't stay out very long each time, but I went out several times. Mostly, I pulled weeds; but, my greatest achievement was completion of the task of removing the root system left when the yew bush outside one of my bedroom windows died this past spring. Our freshly-sharpened axe and my rarely-used razor tooth saw were my friends. The photo (below) shows that the hole has been filled with the dirt that I had dug and piled - as shown in Weekly summary - 5/22/2021. 

Some of my neighbors appreciate having a ready source of dill weed for their cooking (at which they are much better than am I!) Last fall I seeded, with far too many seeds gathered from last year's crop, a couple of beds, of which I show one (below).

While thinking of our neighbors, I am about ready to call them over to pick cherries. Just a few more days, I think.

In going out to the previous edge of our woods to pull creepers, I saw an array of gorgeous, ruby-red jewels among the grass (below). The closeup shows one ruby-red jewel. I don't know whether the seeds came from the strawberry bed that we had (now, HH's rose garden) or from green garbage that I've buried. At any rate, the taste of these left something to be desired.

Just an update: The new Oklahoma redbud tree, the planting of which is shown in Pretty Trees, is doing great, so far. Unfortunately, the new cherry tree still hasn't shown up. (I need to call the nursery.)

Visual Disturbance

Sitting at the luncheon table across from Hunky Husband, I noticed that I couldn't really see his right eye. Admittedly, it was not entirely light in the room - we've had a lot of practice getting food into our mouths, so vision isn't really required. However, I checked to see if it was one eye or the other that had an issue and found that it made no difference which eye (or both) I used. Absent my long history of migraines and migraine equivalents (variants), I would probably have been very concerned. As I have that history, I quickly cleared my plate from the table, did a quick check for possible stroke, told HH that I thought I was having a migraine, and retired to my darkened den. Indeed, my loss of vision progressed to nearly 100%; but, within 15 minutes, I was recovering visual field. Strange. I've not had a migraine of any sort for about 10 years and haven't experienced a retinal migraine equivalent for at least 30 or 40 years.

Migraine is a syndrome characterized by paroxysmal headache associated with other signs and symptoms, such as aura, but when a migraine manifests in a way other than head pain, it is termed a migraine variant (or migraine equivalent). These variants are not as common or as well understood as typical migraines and may be characterized by paroxysmal episodes of prolonged visual auras, atypical auras, confusion, dysarthria, focal neurologic deficits, gastrointestinal manifestations, and other constitutional symptoms, with or without a headache.

I'm surprised to have come up with a migraine equivalent at this late date; but, perhaps it was triggered by all of the bright sun that shone while I was working in the yard.

Comments

[Cop Car]

I sent an email to our neighbors (two households) who may wish to come harvest cherries and/or dill weed. While cherry harvest time isn't of long duration, the dill will be available for weeks - and dill seed will be available much later.

[bogie]

I'm sure your neighbor's appreciate your generosity with the cherries and dill.

That ocular disturbance sure sounds scary. Hopefully it is just migraine that was caused by either light (as you suggested), or possibly heat. I get vision disturbances in my left eye, but it is just a severe cloudiness that goes away after 15-30 minutes. Don't know what causes it it. Looking at migraine (which I hadn't thought of), that doesn't seem to jive as it is total blind spots or total loss of vision, so it will remain a mystery.

[Cop Car]

Bogie--Yes, I'm comfortable with labeling my experience as having been "just another migraine". With your family history of migraine equivalents, I certainly wouldn't rule it out in your case. Yours may vary. (You may ask, as does your dad when I venture into medical stuff, "Remind me again from which school you earned your MD?")

[Cop Car]

I failed to mention that, at my age, about the only things I can contribute to the neighborhood are keeping the house/grounds up to the standards of the neighborhood, and sharing our bounty. Much as I love birds, I hated having the birds get the total crop of cherries that one year that it happened. I hate to see food go to waste. (I'm still living in the day of Victory Gardens and rationing - lol.)

[Liz Hinds]

Jealous of your cherries! Our tree had lots of blossom but if it's the same as last year the birds will get there first!

That migraine sounds nasty. I experience my 'funny eye kaleidoscope' thing about twice a year although recently I was getting worried because they seemed more frequent.

[Cop Car]

Liz--Hopefully, you can keep your "funny eye kaleidoscope" thing at bay and not develop further migraine issues.

I had migraine headaches from age 14 to age 17, and that was it for many years. As I recall, it was all during my 40s that I experienced frequent retinal migraines. As I was doing much flying in those days (my first retinal migraine was at 1am the day on which I was scheduled to fly a few people to California - fortunately, with a capable co-pilot), I was surprised that my flight surgeon had no concerns. His take on it was that I didn't immediately lose all vision and that the whole attack wasn't of long duration so; if I were to experience an attack while inflight (never happened), I could work around it. I did, on occasion, have to pull my car off the street and into a parking lot to wait for an attack to pass.

When the retinal migraines ceased, at about age 50, I started having frequent, days-long, debilitating migraines during which a headache might be present but the least of my worries, the internal upset and mental confusion being the most. During my late 50s and all of my 60s, I was put on a beta-blocker and, on occasion gave myself Imitrex shots when no other form of medication provided any benefit. By age 70, I was down to having just regular old migraine headaches which had tapered off in frequency/duration/severity enough that I had stopped the beta-blockers. By then I had found Excedrin Migraine to be effective.

There was a segment on BBC, this morning, with a researcher who has spent 20 years pursuing migraines. His research honed in on the role of the trigeminal nerve system. Interesting.