Migraine Love
When you wake up with a dull headache in the morning that develops into a migraine by the afternoon, your life takes on a certain clarity. You realize:
1. In fact, your head has hurt you for all of your adult life. You do not remember what it feels like to have a pain-free brain. You imagine taking a drill to your skull and letting the headache drip on the floor. You imagine the color of the drill.
2. Because you are imagining the color of the drill you want to take to your head, you realize that your worst fear has come true. You are, after all, mentally imbalanced. You will never live a normal life. This doesn’t really bother you because your head hurts so much.
3. Your three-year-old wakes up from her nap screaming. You never realized until this moment that she sounds like the Nazgul from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. She shrieks and shrieks while clutching her blanket. You cover your ears and close your eyes and think about the lovely drill.
4. You decide to put on five hours of PBS kids for your children (and the Nazgul). Then you remember that your husband has told you recently that “we are using television to babysit the kids, Jess. We’ve got to stop this.” ARGH! In a surprise move, you pull out a bunch of educational toys and lie on the bed watching your children play with pattern blocks and foam letters. You cannot believe you have battled the urge to turn on the television – and WON!
5. You take your migraine prescription medication and immediately experience: tingling in your hands and feet, nausea, and fatigue. You flomp on your bed and wonder why you took the medicine because YOUR HEAD STILL HURTS. You become angry with the large pharmaceutical companies for producing medication with horrible side effects (but you assume that this irrational anger is due to your mental imbalance).
6. You get out of bed and “prepare for the migraine”. This is the complicated procedure you do when you feel a migraine coming on in which you run around and clean the house. You get everything ready for the next few hours as you will be spending them in your room watching “Iron Chef” reruns on mute with the lights off, sipping broth.
7. The Nazgul has finally stopped crying. You tell her to climb up on the bed with you where you can watch the Food Network together. You hold her. You vow to stop thinking about the drill.
You realize that, perhaps, life will go on after your headache goes away.
Jess,
I can’t say I feel your pain because I’ve never had a migraine. I have however, had an excrutiating sinus headache today. Your post has made me feel like my woes are not so terrible afterall, and I can make it through.
I’m praying for you, quit thinking about the drill, that sounds pretty morbid.
You are insanely funny even when you have a migrane. (Actually, you are funnier because your disoriented and groggy
Lucy the Ring Wraith. I’ll be laughing all day.
Love you!!
I won’t be laughing this time. I’m a sister migraine sufferer. I’m on a daily med now and honestly, it has saved me. If you are getting the migraines more than once a week you may want to think about it. And I have no side effects! (that I’m aware of…but that me be due to my mental imbalance)
One more thing, does it not bother you when you mention that you get migraines, and ALL that entails, and someone says, “oh yeah, I get head aches too.”
Grrrr!
I probably shouldn’t have written all this in a note, but, oh well. I will pray for your migraine situation.
Love,
Diane
I have never had a migraine, BUT I know I can still pray for you!
Blessings, Jess. Blessings to you and the Nazgul!!!!
(((hugs))). I identify all too well with this. Nelson has actually been known to hide the drill around here, because I swear if I could just drill a hole in my head it would bring relief! And poor Sarah is all too familiar with the need to be quiet, because “Mommy has a headache.” She’s been known to ask when she wakes up in the morning whether I have a headache or not.