Graham Chastney

Holidays are normally a time when I’m normally guaranteed to be free of headaches and after nearly two weeks away from work I thought that this years summer break would be the same. That is until I decided to go swimming in the sea at Banburgh on the Thursday afternoon after a beautiful day on Lindisfarne.

No sooner had I entered the water than a pain shot up my neck, exploding at the base of my scull and spreading across the entirety of the back of my head. I knew things were not going to be pleasant because I was on holiday and I hadn’t brought any pain killers with me on the day out, there were some back at the holiday cottage but that was 20 minutes drive away.

I can normally recognise the symptoms that are likely to result in a really bad headache so take anti-inflammatory mediation nice and early and avoid a real headache developing.

It’s hard to describe what happens when I don’t take timely medication. The nearest to a good description is to say that my body goes into shock – I sweat, my heart races, I can’t sit still, sometimes I’m sick, the strangest symptom is that I get a streaming nose and the pain just builds and builds. At these times I would quite happily chop my head off and give it to someone else to look after.

While what happened on holiday was unusual, what followed was even more so. Two nights later the same thing happened all over again, and then again another couple of nights after that. On both of these occasions even the normal dosage of medication didn’t make any difference. On one night I spent 4 hours pacing the floor until eventually I managed to get myself into a fitful sleep and some level of relief.

After the third occasion the pain never really stopped – it was just numbed by the medication.

A few weeks prior to the holidays I had finished a dose of a nightly muscle relaxant (as described in my last post). These had helped but, I’d also experienced some of the side effects of this particular treatment, the main one being an increase in weight that I’m still struggling to shift. So I hadn’t been back to the doctor’s to see about the next steps – I was busy and figured that I’d be fine on holiday. The next step could wait for my return.

Having not been fine on holiday I went back to the doctors and started on a new course of a different muscle relaxant. These hadn’t had chance to build up their effect prior to the third episode, so I went back to the doctor’s again, this time for a strong anti-inflammatory too.

Just to be doubly sure as to the reason for the headaches I’ve also been for an x-ray on my neck.

So where does all that leave me. I’m currently taking anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxant treatments which are both combining to make things a lot better. The results from the x-ray will be through in a few days. Once the x-ray results are in I’ll be back at the doctor’s to talk about the next steps. I’ve also been trying to look after my shoulders and back doing the frequent stretches and exercise.

These headaches have been the worst that I think I have ever experienced, and certainly the most frequent. I don’t think I’ve ever had to take time off work because of these headaches, but I did this time. If I’m honest – I was scared. I’m not scared now, but I am determined to find a more sustainable answer.

Since I posted last time I’ve been amazed by the number of people who have told me about similar symptoms and experiences. Hopefully sharing a bit more will help a few more too.

The following are a set of holiday snaps that we took while we were away in Northumbria.

A beautiful place.

This site has had 11% less visitors this month – but why? What’s happened?

It’s simple – I haven’t written anything since 26th July. I’ve not been lazy and I’m not loosing interest, I’ve just been on holiday and as part of my effort to frame a new work-life balance I decided that I wasn’t going to write anything while away, not even on my blessings site (and not facebook, or twitter either). It was also part of my leaving for a while and my ongoing relationship with information addiction.

The result is not surprising – less visitors.

One of the reasons I don’t try and glean any financial benefit from this site is because I don’t want to feel under pressure to keep the visitor numbers up. I have enough pressure to deal with without giving myself any more.

Look out for an update on my journey with tension headaches, I’ve been to the doctor again this morning after some interesting experiences on holiday.

I’ll also be posting some pictures from our trip to Northumberland when I’ve sorted through the multitude. Look out for some new Jimmy and Granddad and many, many floral shots (a project being undertaken by another member of the family).

So, we’ll see how long it takes for the statistics to recover – or perhaps they won’t?

One of the topics I repeatedly come back to on this site is that of change.

People love it and hate it all at the same time, it all depends upon what the change is and where it’s come from. There are many people within the IT industry who regard it’s current construct – servers in data-centres – as being set in stone. But there are huge changes undergoing across the industry, changes that are so significant that it will radically change the way that we think about IT provision.

Some people predict change by applying well known trends and lifecycles to an existing situation. That’s exactly what Simon Wardley has done. If you really want to know what is driving change in the IT industry you should watch this video, but more than that, you should think about all of the other situations where these principles apply.

Having been in the position where people have wanted to drive an innovation process at me on more than one occasion I can definitely relate to the situations that Simon describes.

And, like Simon, I don’t see this change reducing the need for IT skills, or of making things cheaper. It’s just different – different skills, different cost profile. There is so much latent demand in every business that cost is still going to be a significant issue.

If that has got you thinking, perhaps you’d like to give some thought to the concept of Shadow IT – they already exist somewhere in your organisation. Are they a problem, or are they an opportunity?

This made me smile today – you definitely need the sound on.

I’ve had this experience so many times, but never quite been brave enough to go with the action at the end:

It’s advertising a new book called Rework by Jason Fried and Keith Heinemeier Hanson which looks like an interesting read.