The only trouble with the wonderful giddiness of migraine recovery is I usually have difficulty falling asleep the first night. Not sure if it's some weird serotonin glitch leftover from the attack or just that I'm so high on life I can't come down...
Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Just sayin'
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
ambiguous blessings
Cold apple juice tastes like nectar at the end of a 48 hour attack.
The only emotion stronger than the absolute terror of the (inevitable) next attack is the utter joy of not being in pain. Of being free to walk around, talk to people, eat, go online, do the 1,001 things that add up to so little, but mean so much.
I haven't been here in a while.
Unfortunately, it isn't because I've found a cure, or maybe just gotten through this long, painful season of migraine.
I could speculate about why, but who really cares?
It was the taste of that apple juice last night, drunk standing in the light of the open refrigerator door, that inspired this. I've seldom tasted anything so perfect.
But does it make the hours of immobilizing pain, nausea and vomiting somehow worthwhile? Oh Hell No.
But -- I guess it's something.
Today when I got to work I was still in recovery mode. I think it's more the dehydration and the fact of not having eaten anything for a couple of days than any lingering effects of the tumult in my head -- but my head did feel slightly odd.
The best way I can describe it was it felt borrowed -- like an unfamiliar car I'm slightly nervous about driving.
I don't know what else to say.
In between the last time I posted here and now, I've read Andrew Levy's migraine memoir, "A Brain Wider Than the Sky."
I had every intention of reviewing it here, as none of the reviews on Amazon quite expressed my feelings about the book. Some liked it and identified it ("Oh my God I have migraines too and it was so great to find someone who understands!") some objected to the flowery language and others were disappointed because they didn't find any new remedies between its covers.
The flowery language didn't bother me (mostly) and a lot of the historical stuff was pretty interesting, but I found the book increasingly difficult to keep reading.
I felt challenged to, oh, I don't know, accept my migraines find some higher meaning or purpose to them, go out and write a heartbreaking work of staggering genius (sorry Dave Eggers) -- and it was hard.
As it to do much of anything when under siege of the big M.
I mostly just hate and fear them, it, whatever.
What I was thinking this time was how much it felt like being held hostage. Held hostage by something that hated me.
I remember, in a half asleep state, suddenly thinking that the problem was this body -- get rid of the body and I'd be fine! That seemed like a brilliant solution in my half dreaming daze. The idea has merit, as anyone who suffers migraines could attest.
I like the way Joan Didion puts it best: "That no one dies of migraine is, to someone in the midst of an attack, an ambiguous blessing." That might not be the exact wording, but I know it's close.
But then, also, given the way I twist and dodge to avoid them, with whatever arsenal of drugs and other devices (more about that later... oh soooo much more)its arrival felt like -- like some profound, implacable fact that I continue to avoid.
Levy said mysterious and cryptic things to the effect of migraine being somehow intentional, being a messenger of some sort -- of being purposeful.
Well, lets just say I took all that with a grain of salt. Having frequent, severe migraine can make you a little goofy. Toward the end of this last bout I remember thinking that I would lose my sanity if it went on another day. I also recall thinking that I was probably being dramatic, but seriously, the severity and duration of the pain... it's hard to imagine not being on some level fundamentally altered by it.
But -- as I was saying, I did start to wonder if there were some psychic source of this hideous malady. If I were indeed somehow bringing it on myself by my actions or lack thereof. If it did indeed have some agenda, something to teach me.
If so, couldn't it just send an email?
The only emotion stronger than the absolute terror of the (inevitable) next attack is the utter joy of not being in pain. Of being free to walk around, talk to people, eat, go online, do the 1,001 things that add up to so little, but mean so much.
I haven't been here in a while.
Unfortunately, it isn't because I've found a cure, or maybe just gotten through this long, painful season of migraine.
I could speculate about why, but who really cares?
It was the taste of that apple juice last night, drunk standing in the light of the open refrigerator door, that inspired this. I've seldom tasted anything so perfect.
But does it make the hours of immobilizing pain, nausea and vomiting somehow worthwhile? Oh Hell No.
But -- I guess it's something.
Today when I got to work I was still in recovery mode. I think it's more the dehydration and the fact of not having eaten anything for a couple of days than any lingering effects of the tumult in my head -- but my head did feel slightly odd.
The best way I can describe it was it felt borrowed -- like an unfamiliar car I'm slightly nervous about driving.
I don't know what else to say.
In between the last time I posted here and now, I've read Andrew Levy's migraine memoir, "A Brain Wider Than the Sky."
I had every intention of reviewing it here, as none of the reviews on Amazon quite expressed my feelings about the book. Some liked it and identified it ("Oh my God I have migraines too and it was so great to find someone who understands!") some objected to the flowery language and others were disappointed because they didn't find any new remedies between its covers.
The flowery language didn't bother me (mostly) and a lot of the historical stuff was pretty interesting, but I found the book increasingly difficult to keep reading.
I felt challenged to, oh, I don't know, accept my migraines find some higher meaning or purpose to them, go out and write a heartbreaking work of staggering genius (sorry Dave Eggers) -- and it was hard.
As it to do much of anything when under siege of the big M.
I mostly just hate and fear them, it, whatever.
What I was thinking this time was how much it felt like being held hostage. Held hostage by something that hated me.
I remember, in a half asleep state, suddenly thinking that the problem was this body -- get rid of the body and I'd be fine! That seemed like a brilliant solution in my half dreaming daze. The idea has merit, as anyone who suffers migraines could attest.
I like the way Joan Didion puts it best: "That no one dies of migraine is, to someone in the midst of an attack, an ambiguous blessing." That might not be the exact wording, but I know it's close.
But then, also, given the way I twist and dodge to avoid them, with whatever arsenal of drugs and other devices (more about that later... oh soooo much more)its arrival felt like -- like some profound, implacable fact that I continue to avoid.
Levy said mysterious and cryptic things to the effect of migraine being somehow intentional, being a messenger of some sort -- of being purposeful.
Well, lets just say I took all that with a grain of salt. Having frequent, severe migraine can make you a little goofy. Toward the end of this last bout I remember thinking that I would lose my sanity if it went on another day. I also recall thinking that I was probably being dramatic, but seriously, the severity and duration of the pain... it's hard to imagine not being on some level fundamentally altered by it.
But -- as I was saying, I did start to wonder if there were some psychic source of this hideous malady. If I were indeed somehow bringing it on myself by my actions or lack thereof. If it did indeed have some agenda, something to teach me.
If so, couldn't it just send an email?
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