Now it's the turn of the parents

Possibly because Kay is doing better this week, possibly for other reasons, but Marion & I are now not doing so well. Last night Marion seemed to have had some kind of stress attack, bad headache, vomiting. Neither of us slept very much. Marion's still in bed.

I had a bad day on Tuesday. I started with a wierd headache in the morning, not the usual sort of headache but a feeling that my skull was going to explode due to pressure. At lunchtime I went to get some food and as I stood in the queue I started to feel extremely nauseous, then dizzy, then I broke out in a cold sweat. Things began to seem extremely far away. I went back up to Kay's room (we were in Nijmegen) and felt worse and worse, and I started to get pretty worried. It was clear to me that although I had physiological symptoms, the problem was not physiological. I didn't feel ill, but I did feel on the edge of I-don't-know-what. Clearly something was very wrong.

I ended up calling the nurse who then called in the duty psychologist/social worker. Sat down with this guy for about an hour and talked things through with him. This took away the feeling of impending doom, but I still felt absolutely terrible. I went back to Kay's room, took an ibuprofen and lay on the bed for the rest of the day. The headache was so bad that ibuprofen barely touched it. Fortunately I was reading the last installment of Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy, which is absolutely gripping, and I found that as long as I kept reading things didn't get any worse.

Since then the headache has receeded, but it's not gone. I still have a feeling of pressure in my head and the slightest additional tension starts it growing again. I have a definite need for some peace and quiet, and probably a long holiday. But all of these things are difficult to find at the moment. I can live with the headache as it is right now, but it worries me that I don't feel as though I have any control over it, I don't know how to reduce it nor do I know how to prevent it from getting any worse.

I guess that I have finally discovered a limit to my ability to take stress. Frankly, I rather not have discovered it because what is beyond that limit is unknown and quite scary. Going to have to stay this side of it.