I am recovering from two less serious migraines. It started Friday. I felt the discomfort in the back of my head, and the swelling, but there was no pain yet. I did have the aura – I felt the light was just too bright and everything was just too loud. I wanted to scream at everyone to shut up and as always, I wished I could go sit and work in a really dark corner.
On Saturday I was feeling tired and lazy. It was all so surreal, like floating in a dream world, everything is hazy and distorted. On Sunday morning the swelling was worse and I could feel myself teetering on the brink of nausea. The light was blinding and I wanted to jab knitting needles into my ears to stop the constant sound. I had a bad head ache, but not a migraine, so I took some paracetamol and had a nap – a very long one. I felt totally dysfunctional. I knew the migraine was coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
On Monday morning it greeted me, with a little bit of sympathy – there was no nausea and after taking a migraine kit I managed to drift away by lying really still and covering my eyes and ears. During the afternoon I woke, the pain was gone, but I still felt like I was walking through another world – almost like looking through a camera mounted on someone else’s head – you’re there but not. I tried to be functional and spend time with my family, but the dizziness and lethargy overcame me and I went back to bed at about 16:30. I woke up at 19:30 to read to my daughter. My tongue felt thick, like it wasn’t mine. The words on the pages wouldn’t stand still and I didn’t recognize them easily. It took me forever to read one small chapter; I could not muster even the smallest iota of emotive reading.
Around 9pm I had another blast of migraine pain. Thank goodness for migraine kits. I hoped I would be rested enough to get up for work. This morning I am trying to run through chin deep quicksand. My head will not sit still on my neck. There’s a disco ball on my computer screen. I can’t remember things I normally don’t have to think about. My words have to fight my tongue to come out, I am sure I sound slightly drunk. All I want it to get back into bed and sleep it off. I feel guilty because my work is suffering from my “brain damage” and I rob my children of time I could have spent with them. I forget whole days; the days leading up to the migraines and the days after become a warbled mess where nothing happened in the order I try to remember it. I hate this. I don’t want this. I don’t want to hear that it is “normal”. I hate people looking at me like I am lying. I want to believe that there is a way to make it stay away forever.
All That I Am 