Migraine

The place is almost black, except for flashing, swirling lights trying to force their way in. The walls are pulsating, the floor shifts, all of the air is sucked from the room and my eyes burn in their sockets. Blindly crawling, I make my way toward the bed, trying to breathe, trying to think, hoping my skull does not shatter from the relentless trauma within. Like a medieval curse, migraine has settled in…again.



I have had the cursed things since I was about 6 years old and though they have become much less severe with age (the only solid advantage of old age I can think of, so far) they still remain an issue.


Mine are always right behind my eyes and seem to invariably be visually connected. Stress is frequently a factor, but not always. I wear sunglasses in all kinds of weather including snow or rain, because the light gets me every time. Reading this back, it sounds like I should be in the Twilight movies, or possibly headed to a rehab center somewhere.


Strobe lights nearly kill me. I can’t even tell if I am standing or falling, once somebody puts those on. I had one memorable incident on a dance floor, when anybody watching would have been certain I was the drunken town fool or raging addict of other sorts. I don’t even drink and never have, nor am I a drug user. I had to literally hold onto tables to find my way back to my chair. I couldn’t even tell if I was upright. What a spectacle.


3-D movies? Might as well just shoot me, as it would be far more merciful.


I have had doctors tell me to go for a walk in the fresh air to get rid of one of these episodes. Of course, anyone who has had genuine migraines will be laughing out loud reading that statement. Go for a walk???? I can’t even stand when I am in the middle of an attack. In fact, I can’t even sit. I can only lie down on my back, in a dark room, with a cloth over my eyes. Maybe he should have suggested that I ride a bull for 8 seconds or operate a jack-hammer for an hour or two. It would have been nearly as realistic.


One time during a hospital visit to emergency, they pumped me full of heavy narcotics and about 20 minutes later, as the medication was working, they told me to stand up and hold still for sinus x-rays.


Stand up? Stand still? I could hardly even move. I could still feel the horrendous pain, in spite of the drugs, but I just didn’t care as much. Having me try to stand at that point was like commanding cooked spaghetti to stand vertically.


Weeks later I met the doctor who had been in emergency that day. I was wearing the same pink sundress I had on when I landed in hospital and he came up to me, expressing shock that I was the same person. He said he recognized the dress or he never would have known who I was. I guess that is a good thing given that I looked kind of like a slack jawed, wild haired, street maniac whose eyes weren’t even level, when I first saw the man.


I have tried the ‘migraine’ medication right back to the Erogotamine products they once used. Did you know that a possible side effect for over use of those remedies was gangrene? They also failed to warn me the first time I took the stuff that I need to add Gravol with it, or risk wishing I was dead. It hadn’t been in my mouth for a full minute when I started throwing up. I seriously thought the top of my head would blow off and my eyes would explode right out of my face and roll across the bathroom floor.


The newer stuff only seems to make me aggravated (almost raging) most of the time and worsens the headache. Once in a great while they work but it is hit or miss at best and at 5 pills for 100 bucks, unless it is a nearly guaranteed fix, it doesn’t cut it.


So, dark, quiet room, here I come. Be gone evil lights, at least for an hour or two.