one of those days

Last night I said to J., "I feel really hopeful." "Good--you should!" "I always feel hopeful and excited about things, but today feels special. Something really good is going to happen. And I really think I stand a chance with this grant giveaway." "Of course you do!"

Cue 12:01 AM, when I tried and failed to submit my Pepsi project. A few hours later, adrenaline still rushing through body after having tried to troubleshoot the technological issues that held me back from submitting my little grant application, I lay in bed trying to fall asleep.

And then today was a doozie. It's rare that I'm discouraged or down in the dumps, but man--today did a number on me, and nothing even happened! (Why did I refuse to note the signs of a migraine coming on?) While running errands, I noticed that the daylight made me squint, and my vision was blurry. I took down my photo show from the Flicker Bar, and ended up getting super-teary-eyed. Not sure why, as I know I sold well (I sold enough photos to reach my goal of having enough dough to launch the Avid Bookshop website!) and had a really successful art opening on February 1st. Hell, even if I'd sold nothing, I still would've felt proud of myself for having my first-ever photo show, for doing something public with a hobby I think I'm pretty good at.

So it wasn't regret that made me teary-eyed, and it wasn't the usual reason that I cry at the drop of a hat (um, PMS, anyone?): I think it was that I was getting a migraine. Yesterday evening, I was feeling particularly euphoric, more encouraged and productive and active than I've been in weeks! But then the prodrome really set in (my blurred vision, the bright sun, the weepiness, incessant yawning) without my realizing (or wanting to acknowledge) what it was.

Now, 22 hours after my hopeful, euphoric outburst, I'm feeling okay. A little down in the dumps, a little discouraged, and a little distracted by the discomfort that's not quite settled in behind my left eye. Tomorrow I'll begin anew, having a couple of bookstore meetings and dealing with some bureaucratic bill pay stuff that will surely find me sitting on hold, book in hand for a little while.

Hope you're well.

absent migraineur

Can't say why exactly I've not been writing on here. The obvious answers refer to my very busy bookstore life (I'm opening my own independent bookstore in Athens this year), my busy personal life, and my not wanting to be on the computer after a long day of work. I have been doing pretty well, migraine-wise, and I like that I don't think about attacks during pain-free days as much as I used to. That being said, I miss the community of health bloggers and must admit that nothing beats getting a warm email from a reader who says, "At last--someone who understands what I'm going through!"

I logged into my Blogger account this evening and found 43 unmoderated comments. Unbelievable. (And few of them were spam.) For those of you out there who noticed I've been gone, I'm sorry if I've disappointed you by disappearing!

Life is good. Had a 3-day migraine attack during my birthday weekend in Miami a few days ago, but I handled the pain well and was able to have a fulfilling, fun vacation all the same. I feel that, for the most part, I'm better at coping with migraine attacks than I used to be.

My primary care doctor put me on the birth control pill, which is really helping my migraine attack frequency but wreaking havoc on my menstrual cycle. Supposedly that will clear up soon, but man! 20 day periods are not my cup of tea. Maybe it's just menopause, a couple decades early. :)

Oh, and speaking of decades: I've wrapped up 3 of 'em now. Time to change my blog description at the top of this page, as I'm no longer a "20-something"!

Finally, I'll refer you to this month's How to Cope With Pain Blog Carnival. The moderator was kind enough to include me even though my posts have all but grinded to a halt.

Take care, be well, and let me know what's new with you.

the joys of being a woman!

some of my favorite things to bring my headachey self some relief:
delicious cafe, reading, and my rose-tinted, anti-fluorescent glasses

Each blessed month, I am so proud to be graced with an entire week of cramps, headaches, exaggerated achiness, remarkably spectacular swings in mood, irritability with the people I love most, and--best of all--I get to deal with my Feminine Products nearly every hour on the hour for a couple of days! IT'S AWESOME.

But the migraine that accompanies this monthly extravaganza of womanhood is probably the best part of it. It's so great that after a couple days of using triptans I'm not allowed to use any more. That means I get to take ineffective rescue meds and just bask in the glory of my brain chemistry, thinking of how every action I take brings me pain and there's relatively little I can do about it until my period is gone.

Today we are on day one of not being able to use triptans. Luckily I have a two p.m. deadline and a 2:30 PM doctor's appointment.

It is bothering me that I wrote the time in two distinctly different formats just then. But to show how casual and carefree I am nowadays, I am just going to LEAVE IT AS IS!

A bit stressed and headachey but chipper enough to drive you crazy,
Janet

the streak is over

After 22(ish) days of no migraine, I had to take a Maxalt today. In recent weeks I've felt very heavy-headed and icky upon waking; when I move about the house and get ready for the day, the feeling dissipates and I start to feel a-okay. This morning my head felt heavier than it has in a while, and something just didn't feel right. I made coffee and, after messing around the house for awhile, walked to meet some friends for lunch. To my surprise, my stomach was really upset within minutes of eating the meal. I hadn't had anything on my forbidden list, so I was a bit confused.

After my post-lunch long walk, I returned home and felt that cool, airy pain beginning on the left side of my forehead. There's a particular type of discomfort that accompanies my initial PMS symptoms, and this was it. "No way!" thought I, "I just had my period!" One look at a calendar showed me that my menstrual-related migraine was right on time. D'oh!

I took a Naproxen tablet in the hopes it could stave off the real migraine to come, but this afternoon I could feel the symptoms worsening and took my Maxalt. Now I feel airy and tired and a bit out of it--good ol' Maxalt + PMS will do that every time.

I'm proud of my streak and not surprised that my period has helped trigger this migraine episode. I'll deal. When my period's over, maybe I can start a new tally and get higher than 22! And maybe not. Either way, I'm cool. I thought I'd be really disappointed and discouraged when the streak ended, but I'm not. I'm pretty confident I'll have another pain-free stretch coming up soon.

the PMS monster hath risen

This past week I suffered from awful bouts of irate anger (redundant, much?) and moodiness. Though the migraine frequency has lessened, the headaches still come up once a week or so. Until this week, the head pain wasn't accompanied by other migraine side effects other than sleepiness.

Until PMS time came. I had worse PMS than I can remember in recent history. I was moody, extremely sad (curled up on the couch listening to overdramatic songs on my iPod--not even using the stereo!), and flushed with anger at the drop of a hat. Yech. As I mentioned to my sister, I felt the way I did as a teenager during fights with my mom: in each case (picking a fight with my beau this week or with my mom 15 years ago), I could see the argument spinning out of control, could understand why the things I was getting p.o.ed about really were meaningless. But I couldn't stop being mad. I couldn't stop yelling or uttering huge sighs of disgust. Ew! Dear Lord, please don't make me a teenager every month. I hope that this week's tudiness will not replicate itself next cycle.

Am I the only one whose period brings different side effects every time? Sometimes I'm cool and collected (okay, that's rare--but last month I was like that!); other times I am the devil incarnate. Still other times are marked by awful cramps and no headache; the next month, I might have an 8-day Migraine with no cramps. I prefer predictability.

9 days and counting

Excuse me if I sicken you with my sickly sweet view of the world again, but I'm feeling great! The past few days I have been staying at my friends' new house in Atlanta, and I've been overexposed to triggers that usually work on me like clockwork, causing me to pop a few triptans in order to function.

Here are the things that usually tip me over the edge, especially over Christmas:

drinking a fair bit of alcohol (two nights in a row, at that!)
sleeping in a place where cats might jump on you and meow in the middle of the night
slight cat allergies (sad.)
changing weather patterns (sunny to cloudy, cloudy to rainy, rainy to soaked, creepily warm to freezing)
interrupted/disrupted sleep (2:30 AM bedtime one night, 4:45 AM the next, 11:45 PM the next)
driving in the car in unfamiliar, trafficky areas
having my period
exposure to fluorescent lights
exposure to cigarette smoke
loud music

In the last four days, I have experienced inordinate amounts of the above-listed triggers and am still alive to tell the tale. Nine days without the need to take a Relpax or Maxalt--and on those days I've felt really good, not half-blah as I often do on my non-migraine days.

Of course I'm hesitant to chalk it all up to the 4-6 weeks of regular exercise, but I do think that's the key player in this equation. Add that to the fact that I am hopeful--truly hopeful!--about my chances of operating like a normal human being again and you get one optimistic, good-feelin' girl.

Merry Christmas. I hope my next post is just as pain-free, and I wish you all happy, HEALTHY holidays!

achy and lazy

Saturday I woke up tired. Tired and sore. Most likely that's because I stayed up pretty late Friday night and had one too many vodka-sodas. Fair enough. I didn't feel hungover OR migrainey (miracle of miracles), but I was achy and tired much of the day. When night fell, however, I was awake and energetic and inspired. J. and I had some sushi, went to see a friend play music downtown, and then rented a movie. I was in a silly, hyper, ridiculous mood until I fell asleep around 1:30.

The next night (last night, Sunday), I was up really late again. I saw a movie with my friend and, after walking home, took my nightly meds and planned to go to sleep. But THEN my beau came over to hang out, and we ended up making pizza at one in the morning (I had only snacked for dinner instead of eating a real meal, so I was hungry!) and watching a movie. Again, despite having a tired, achy day, my night was fun and silly and giggly. (I am pretty weird in real life, this I must admit--the last two evenings I exploited this trait for all its worth.)

I was wired and couldn't fall asleep last night. Eventually I shut the light off around 3:45 AM; of course that meant I didn't wake up 'til an embarrasingly late hour today. I've accomplished some things around the house (wrote a couple of emails, did the dishes, tidied up, visited with a good friend I've not seen in a LONG time, etc.), but I feel unaccomplished, tired, achy, and lazy overall. Wholly uninspired. It could be that my lovely time of the month is settling in for its visit. Perhaps the achiness is due to that. It could be because I skipped out on this week's exercise and yoga. Maybe none of the above. Maybe all of the above.

In any case, I feel like I'm watching myself from the outside, knowing that getting up and being active is the way to go. But since I have work tonight and a big editing assignment coming in the mail tomorrow, I feel like vegging while I can. So I continue in this pattern of achy laziness.

Let's hope I'm not so down on myself tomorrow.

longest, most resistent attack in quite awhile

Early Thursday evening, my brain started to fluctuate between pre-migraine mode and healthy mode. As I sat on the phone with my sister around eleven p.m., mild, steady pain and congestion set in and I decided to go to bed in the hopes that sleep would restore me to normalcy. I woke up around 6:30 the next morning and took a Maxalt. Two hours later, I was on the way to the my babysitting charges' house and took another, as the first did nothing to help. The pain dissipated soon after, and I had a VERY sleepy morning with E., the three-year-old I was watching all day while her brothers and parents went to Six Flags. I felt bad for being so out of it, but that's what Maxalt does--especially when I have to take two. E. and I watched Sesame Street and I lay down, trying to relax a bit.

In the afternoon, we went to my house to meet up with Jim. Later we headed to a local park where there's a swimming beach and small lake. The sand was so bright, the reflection of the sun off the water was blinding my eyes even though I had a hat pulled low over my head. I knew the Migraine was on its way back. It set in in earnest that evening and I fell asleep after E. went to bed, waiting for her family to get home so I could get to my own bed.

My Maxalt allowance is three per 24 hours, though I very rarely take more than one (let alone two) in a day. I took one before bed because the pain was distracting me from sleep.

Around 4 AM, I woke up with a groggy head but no pain!
At 9, I woke up for real and felt like crap.

The pain had come back. Three Maxalts, one Naproxen, one Lortab, and lots of sleep didn't cure this menstrual migraine. It hasn't been this bad in such a long time! I made a pot of coffee and took a nasal decongestent this morning and feel much better, but not up to par. I had to cancel an important bookstore meeting at noon and said no to hanging out with a friend. Tonight is my friends' wedding reception (they got married last week) and I really hope I'm well enough to go.

The end.

dishwashing dreams

Let's talk for a moment about how much my miniature (18"-wide) dishwasher has changed my life and, potentially, helped my migraine frequency.

I've been wanting a dishwasher for months--nay, years! I hate, detest, dislike, and loathe doing the dishes by hand. My kitchen is very small and there was no room for an in-cabinet dishwasher--or so I thought until I found the GE Space Saver dishwasher.

The contraption was installed a month ago and has CHANGED MY LIFE. First of all, I don't have to come home with a sense of dread, knowing that yesterday's cereal bowl (complete with rotting milk) is at the bottom of the sink under last night's pizza pan. If I don't feel well, I can still have a snack without feeling stressed out about having to wash up the dishes afterward.

Let's face it: having to deal with chores drives me crazy and makes me feel inordinately stressed out. I've been known to have minor (or major, depending on how you look at it) freak outs centered around the messiness of my house on a monthly basis. (The word "monthly" is a key word here, folks.)

Not bending over the sink to scrub means fewer bothersome neck and back pains--pains which can trigger migraine headaches!b

The dishwasher had an unintended effect as well. Obviously I don't have to worry about doing the dishes or having stinky bowls pile up in the sink. I thought the glory would end there, that not stressing would be the main focus. Little did I suspect that having clean dishes most of the time would encourage me to eat more regularly. I no longer think, "Ooh, I'm kind of peckish...but I'll just have a few cashews so I don't have to wash a plate in order to make a snack." Now I can just bust that plate out, make some delicious snack, and therefore take that extra step that prevents a hunger-induced Migraine episode.

Yay for me!

If you have a few hundred dollars to spare (or landlords that just so happen to be extremely generous parents of yours), get a dishwasher. It shall change your life!

once upon a mattress

I can't wait to go to bed tonight. And no, this desire is not directly connected to the constant tiredness I've been feeling lately. (Yes, I'll call my neurologist about this. Maybe even as soon as tomorrow!)

You see, I bought a new bed today. Miracle of miracles: you can't feel the springs in it when you lie down! AMAZING. It's soft yet firm. And inches wider than the full-sized, hard bed I've had for seven years. To top it all off, it was one of the less expensive models the store had to offer--and (surprise of surprises) I BARGAINED WITH THE SALESMAN. True story, folks: you can haggle over mattress sales. I got the thing for $80+ less than I would have had I not asked the guy to strike me a deal. (A few months ago in Boston, my friend got a deal on a mattress by staging a walk out. The salesman, really wanting a sale, called her back as she was exiting and offered her a deal. We are awesome.)

So that's the story. I've been waking up with back aches for many a week now, knowing I had to purchase a new, supportive mattress soon. And today I bit the bullet as soon as the Maxalt kicked my menstrual migraine out of the picture. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel stupendous!

I can't make it--I have a migraine.

I cancel plans. I cancel plans a lot. One of my least favorite things about having migraine disease is my need for lots of quiet alone time, even if I don't want it. I love being social; I love spending time with friends, going to shows, grabbing a beer, or sitting around having craft night. But the migraines often get me down.

Sometimes I just don't commit to something I would love to attend. That late-night party down the street, the one that's sure to be fun and full of dancing and friends? "Maybe--if I don't feel bad." The movie I've been wanting to see is playing the night before my period is to arrive--most likely I'll have a migraine then, so going to a movie is just ruled out before I even consider making plans.

Other times, I bail in fear of a migraine. Big events like weddings, funerals, holidays, and other much-anticipated events are almost sure to be accompanied by an attack. A couple of years ago, I got an invitation to a good friend's wedding. I took some factors into consideration: 1, most weddings entail my pretending to have fun and socialize when really I have throbbing pain behind my eyes; 2, going to an old friend's wedding doesn't guarantee you'll actually get to talk to that person; 3, The venue was nearly two hours from my home--and I didn't have the inclination or money to spend the night in the same town as the wedding--that means I would have a long drive there and back--more triggers.

Out of fear, I wrote a sweet note to my friend and declined the invitation. Turns out she was hurt and disappointed--she'd really wanted me there; I was one of the first friends she'd met as a seventh grader in a new town. So I went. And I had fun. And I got a migraine on the way home.

Mostly I cancel plans at the last minute when I have an attack coming on. Even if the meds I take do work, the postdrome means I'll be sleepy and out of it and not in the mood to socialize. A few years ago, I'd pop Imitrex or Relpax while at a busy rock show at midnight, sure the headache would be gone in a few minutes so I could continue dancing and rocking out. I was usually right in my judgment then and ended up back up to par an hour or so later, ready to continue to the night. I don't feel that way anymore. Now I skip out when I feel the migraine coming on and head straight home, realizing that if I push myself I'll feel worse.

Canceling plans makes me feel terrible; my guilt merely compounds the pain and nausea I'm feeling, and that simply doesn't help anyone, the friends I've canceled on or myself. My friends and family are extremely understanding: they know of my health condition and their first priority (and usually mine) is to take care of me. But I still cannot get over the feeling that maybe, just maybe, they think I'm flaky. That I've let them down. That I can't be counted on. And I can't seem to figure out how to get over that.

I read others' blogs, read mantras about taking care of myself, read stories about people going through similar things. Maybe one day soon all that will click. Logically, I know the the choice I make to go home and try to relax is the only healthy choice I can make. Emotionally, I continue to feel like I'm undependable, and that feels pretty rotten.

a note to those who are considering Zonegran

I was just on MyMigraineConnection.com, perusing articles and looking up information on Zonegran withdrawal symptoms. To my chagrin, there's a general lack of specificity when it comes to lists of withdrawal symptoms. As the drug is prescribed off-label for Migraines (it's an epilepsy treatment), the medical websites all tend to point out that one should exercise caution while weaning off Zonegran due to increased risk of seizure and "other side effects--talk to your doctor."

So far my withdrawal process has been a lot easier than I'd expected. I'm halfway through and am sure my happiness with daily life has a great deal to do with my increased energy (a combination of getting off the energy-zapping Zonegran and getting all that B2 in my vitamins and my Petadolex, as I have mentioned before). Today I really took a turn for the worse, however, and hope hope hope it was just for one day.

Last night I went downtown with friends for a low-key night of chatting and carousing. Around 9:30 I decided to walk home, feeling a headache coming on. It was such a low-grade pain that I figured getting into bed early with a book and some chamomile tea would heal me right up. Boy, was I wrong. A raging Migraine headache took over within an hour of my arrival home. My stomach felt swirly but I was too nauseated to fetch a wastebasket to use as my emergency receptacle should I become sick to my stomach. (Luckily I didn't end up needing this option in the first place.)

This morning I woke up in a foul mood. A gray mood. A gray mood with fiery, jagged edges that caused me to lash out at everything from my boyfriend (who was suffering from a Migraine himself) to the dishes in the sink to the broom to my neglected plants. I. WAS. EXTRAORDINARILY. ANGRY. AND. BITTER. For no known reason. The closest I've come to such unreasonable anger would be in times of PMS, but I just finished my period, and this mood was far more sour and impossible to climb out of than any routine PMS funk.

What was I going through today? I see that agitation and irritability are side effects of Zonegran withdrawal; they can also accompany some people's postdrome stage, though feeling anger at this stage is infrequent for me.

In my rather fruitless search for Zonegran withdrawal symptoms, I did find a few pages on MyMigraineConnection.com on which people solicited the advice of others who may've tried Zonegran--what's our opinion of the drug as a Migraine treatment?

Here's my response. For those of you who read my blog frequently, you'll see nothing new. But it felt good to put it on paper--er, screen.

I have been on Zonegran for 22 months. The frequency, severity, and duration of my Migraine attacks decreased overall, but I still had super-duper Migraine months (especially during hot Augusts or stressful holiday times, for example) and was relying on my acute medication, Relpax, just as much as ever.

For me, the side effects of Zonegran far outweighed the positive. My doctor mentioned the possibility of some side effects, but both he and the drug literature mentioned that the effects would probably go away within 4-6 weeks. This was not the case for me. I lost a LOT of weight and the more bothersome side effects--memory loss, difficulty word-finding, near-constant fatigue, and simply a general feeling of dumbness!--were harder to pin down and took longer to emerge. I thought I was going nuts until I found a whole community of people out there who'd had the same things going on in their brains.

I'm now going through the withdrawal process and will be off Zonegran in three weeks. Petadolex is my new herbal drug of choice, and thus far it's working well!

nine day streak!

I went nine days with no serious (i.e., meriting a Relpax) Migraine headache! I had a day last week when I felt a little achey and so drank lots of water and went to bed earlier than usual; I awoke feeling great.

My Migraine that interrupted the streak was a predictable one, the one that almost always accompanies my period. As I mentioned many a post ago, my week-long Migraine attack that used to come along with every single period got nipped in the bud, probably because of a Frova + Naproxen preventive plan I went on for a few months. (It got too expensive to do each month, but my doctor's guess was right: I, like many other women, had the happy circumstance of the drug regimen stopping a many-year-long problem, transforming a 7- or 8-day Migraine into a one - or two-day one.) Anywho. This month's amazing streak was only interrupted by a menstrual Migraine Friday night, and it wasn't a bad one; it took double the Relpax to get rid of it, but the pain was far from unbearable.

Overall, I'm thrilled with the idea of my body soon being free of Zonegran. I was giddy with excitement when picking up my last pills at the pharmacy last week--surely I struck the pharmacists as slightly crazed and goofy. Who cares? I'm going off a mind-altering chemical I've been ingesting for 22 months. Yeehaw!

a month of headaches

This.
month.
has.
been.
awful.

Every day marked by at least a little pain; every few days (at the least) marked by a throbbing Migraine headache. The hot weather, the impending afternoon rains, the menstrual cycle that comes around like clockwork. I think the TMJ is rearing its ugly head again as well--perhaps this is a side effect and a cause of the increased anxiety surrounding the ever-increasing headaches.

My Migraine headaches have been worse this month than they have in YEARS. I have become a hermit again but am determined not to get me down. GRRRRR...

2 days in a row with no headache? Can it be?

As I may've mentioned in my last post (I'm too lazy to look back...), I have been suffering from the longest stint of Migraine-infused days in my recent history. This streak beats even my worst menstrual Migraines--I've been repeatedly put out of commission for days on end as the temperatures in my town soar and hover right around the 100 degree mark.

Friday night I worked for a couple of hours while suffering from a pretty bad headache. I had taken Relpax and Naproxen around 9:30, but by 11:20, I felt no relief, just the ever-throbbing pain getting worse. Being around people and music and noise and chatter wasn't helping, so as soon as my duties were done at 11:30, I split, taking up my beau's offer for him to close up shop for me. (All that was left to do was count up some money and pay myself and the band I was working the door for.) In any case, I was home in bed by midnight, utterly awake but unable to do anything but lie still.

Saturday, no pain to speak of.
Sunday, same scenario.

I feel as if a great weight has been lifted. I timidly step into this painless territory after nine or ten days of not being able to have a normal life, and I'm even more nervous than usual that I carry a teensy, ticking time bomb, that my pain-free hours are short-lived and that I'd better live it up before I get another Migraine headache.

That's all. Hope everyone is feeling good!!

a pain a day

I have had a headache every day for the last week or so. This achey, sinusy feeling throbbing on the left side of my head feels like a grade 2 Migraine headache. It's only progressed to a full-fledged Migraine twice in 8 days, and I've only taken a triptan twice. I am wary of taking pain medication for it because I don't want my chronic daily headache to rear its ugly head again in the same way it used to. This is how it used to feel, minus the sinusy aspects.

Had I not learned that the vast majority "sinus headaches" are really undiagnosed Migraine headaches, I'd think I were suffering from a sinus headache in part. I also feel the way I do the night before I get my period, that particular brand of Migraine I endure right before the onset.

It has been around 100 degrees out every day for the last several days here, and maybe that has something to do with this. I don't know. I just feel tired and helpless since I feel I can't take my medication due to fear of rebound headache.

traveling again

I just got back in the country after nearly three weeks of travel. The last time I was out of the U.S. for a significant length of time, I happily surprised by having only one Migraine headache in six weeks--a miracle! Before and after that six week period, my Migraine pattern was pretty much normal (frequent headaches, intense pain when they did occur).

This time the pattern didn't change. Thanks to my medicinal regimen and lifestyle, my frequency is still down compared to what it used to be about a year or so ago, and my overall pain isn't as bad as it used to be. Still, I was sad to feel three distinct bad headaches rear their ugly heads during my 18 days out of town--keeping the average up. (I wasn't on my period.) Having a Migraine while out of town is rough in many ways. Luckily I was traveling with one of my best friends who's long since understood my patterns--she and I've been close since we were freshmen in college and I was an undiagnosed Migraineur. Then I was just the friend who frequently cancelled plans, having to turn out the dorm room lights and cancel plans with no warning whatsoever.

With the exception of one or two nights, I had a hotel to stay in. I find this such a load off my shoulders--I don't have to worry about my Migraine attacks as intensely when I know I have my own space to go home to. Times I have had to retreat to others' cramped apartment floors or fold-out beds are times I feel more stressed out and more prone to attacks.

In any case, I made it through the trip. French bars are all too smoky and, despite their charm and music and my desire to stay out late, the cigarette smoke got to me and gave me quite the Migraine. 'Twas sad to skip out on the wine while there, too, but I saved some bucks, I'm sure.

Jet lag calls. Bonsoir!