Migraine madness

As I mentioned in my last post, I hope to avoid the migraine that plagued me at last year's scrapping retreat. And it seems that I may just do that. Because I got one EARLY! I spent most of last week in either the doctor's rooms or admitted in hospital, being jabbed in the bum with pain relief, hooked up to IV drips and being pumped full of antihemetics. Lovely. Whilst a couple of days primed full of pethadine may sound like a real treat, I can assure you - and any doctors out there that think that true migraine sufferers that ask for peth are just abridged junkies - that through the haze of it all, you can still feel the pain of the migraine. A lot. In fact, more than a lot.

Many people think that a migraine is a really bad headache. Ahhhh, no. Definately, 100%, no. It is extremely difficult for migraine sufferers to articulate what it is like to have an attack. Even many medically trained professionals are unable to empathise with you. Which makes for an extremely unpleasant time when you are at your most vunerable, puking the lining of your insides up, trying to simply concentrate on convincing yourself that the pain in your head really won't cause your brain to explode or leak out of your ears. And doing all this whilst recapping the past 10 years of your migraine plagued life to a doctor that seems unable (or unwilling) to read a damn history chart!!!! Arrghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Tom showing concern over mummy's ill health

But I'm all better now, thanks. And a good thing too, as I am only days away from going to Sydney. Now if I could only recapture the days lost last week so I can get everything done here before I have to leave.

The Luckystrike cow that we were priming to be flushed, has completed her fertility treatments and on Monday she gave us 9 beautiful embryos. I am so proud! We had organised to have 10 recipient cows prepared, but simply putting them through their own fertility treatments does not alone mean that they will actually be recips. The vet doing the embryo transfers feels their ovaries and uterus and makes a determination as to their capacity to hold a pregnancy. You will never get 100%, and we knew that we would have some rejected. In the end, 5 out of the 10 were suitable and they all had embryops implanted. The remaining 4 embryos were frozen and they will be implanted next week into cows that have natural cycles.

So the upshot of all of this, is that we are crossing our fingers for possibly 4 or 5 live calves in 9 months time.

2 embryos under microscope