A Month of Reflection: Day Twelve
I have a migraine today, but I am here.
My first migraine came my freshman year of college. I remember being in class and feeling nauseous. Trying to make sense of the words on the board, but the more I concentrated the more tighter the knot behind my eyes came. The lights became unbearable. I ended up leaving early and hiding under a blanket in my dorm for the rest of the day.
A couple of weeks later it happened again. The nausea first, followed by sensitivity to light and inability to concentrate. Then the pain. After a couple more I finally decided to go see my doctor. She said I was depressed and anxious because it was my first year of nursing school. She was a nurse practitioner so she told me she was sure of it. She remembered those days; hell, things were worse back then. Then sent me on my way with a couple of prescriptions.
They didn't help, and I definitely didn’t take as directed, so neither did I .
In the fall semester of my second year I was driving home from my parents one evening, when suddenly my left eye started getting blurry and dark. I lived at the dorms on campus, which was at the hospital, so I drove right to the ER and went to triage. The doctor was concerned about two things: a retinal detachment or the beginning signs of multiple sclerosis. The diagnostics for which were an ocular ultrasound and an MRI, respectively. When we could safely rule those out, the doctor told me I was having what he believed was an ocular migraine. Essentially, a migraine is believed to be caused by constriction of blood vessels in and around the brain. In an ocular migraine this is happening in the area surrounding the ocular nerves.
The migraines continued for years. The list of reasons goes on and on. Stress, hormones, anxiety, physical exhaustion, dehydration. I have seen a few neurologists. I have ruled out the really scary stuff. It’s just your run of the mill, pain in the ass migraine.
It’s the worst fucking chronic illness to have. And I am hormonal. And Donald Trump is going to be president. And I want to complain. And this will be a reflective complaint, because it makes me be more patient and understanding when others come to me with their medical problems.
For starters, it is invisible. A close second, everyone either thinks:
“it’s a bad headache”
or
that they get migraines too, so they know just how it feels
Obviously, I know I am not the only one in the world suffering from this, but I think my fellow chronic migrainers would agree, when someone looks at you and laughs saying they have a migraine…it isn’t.
It just isn’t.
It makes it very frustrating because everyone and their mother then has the cure. I tell them I have been dealing with this for a decade now, they continue to give me all the tricks that are guaranteed, or that saved their mom’s hairdresser. I then have to sit, with a migraine, and listen to someone explain to me why I need to drink more water. Meanwhile, I have spent the last hour puking. Or being told that fresh air help. It is 2pm on a sunny summer afternoon.
I can tell when people know their shit because they will pull out the more unique remedies. My husband actually taught me to drink pickle juice, that’s how I knew he was the one. Medication does help, the downfall is most migraine medications truly just knock you out. So… you can’t really do anything. But when you call to tell your boss you have a migraine they said “Oh it’s a headache”. Or when you have to take the day off after a “head ache” because you have a foggy brain because of the coma you had to put yourself in to allow your brain to stop fucking squeezing itself. It honestly makes so much sense for me, my biggest coping mechanism is to tense. My hands, my shoulders, grind my teeth. When I begin my meditations I have to usually double or triple the number of deep and grounding breaths I take to bring myself down. I am constantly clinging to safety. So is my brain.
I also think it makes sense I am having one now. I this been awhile, like I said. I have been really healthy actually, so I am not too much thinking it’s that. I drink plenty of water. It’s not that, it’s nothing physical. It’s the mental this time. Not even the stress, no it’s the mental weight I think.
It’s funny, in some ways I am better than I have ever been before. I am clearer, I am fairly self aware I think, if I can say that. I am healing. I am healing a lot. I am doing a lot. I am doing a lot of silent work. It’s been really hard. And the world has been really fucking heavy. And I decided to be selfish and have a child…so having to think about and plan for a child’s future in this world is, more difficult than I had anticipated…
It makes sense that my brain is literally cramping, I can’t remember the last time I really let her rest, for more than a thirty minute meditation.
With that said, I am going to sign off here and go and prepare for bed.
First though, I am going to email my senators again and spend some time sharing email’s from Operation Olive Branch. Please check out the links below for those, and more ways to make an impact. Go with kindness today my friends.
GoFundMe for Fadi's Son's Medical Expenses
GoFundMe to Help Save Mohammad's Family
Operation Olive Branch One-Click Email List
CodePink's Email Campaign to Senators "Stop the $20bn Sale of Arms to Israel"