Migraine

By David Glenn Cox

　

I didn’t write anything yesterday, I had a headache. Oh, the times in my life that I have gotten the look, "You’ve got a headache?" My first wife once asked, "You’re not going to work because you’ve got a headache? Take some aspirin!"

Those of you who have never had a migraine headache are truly god’s chosen people. Imagine the worst headache pain that you have ever endured in your entire life, then imagine it lasting for three days. The first day you are irritable, the second inconsolable and by the third mournful and depressed. Taking aspirin or Tylenol is like treating cancer with Pez.

It is a malady that strikes women over men by three to one and is suffered most by young adults. I guess I should take some comfort that I am still afflicted by illnesses of the young even if my drivers license says otherwise.

I’ve had all types of headaches in my life, sinus, tension, allergic and alcohol induced but a migraine puts them all to shame. It is the Disney world of headaches; it is a full body sensory experience headache.

I remember my first migraine like we remember a frightening bad dream. It struck out of the clear blue. I didn’t know anything about the warning signs, I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I was twenty-one and sitting on a picnic table with friends talking about our plans for the weekend when I was struck down like I was shot with a gun. The right side of my head exploded in a throbbing pain.

I knew instantly that something was very wrong, I got in my car to make the five-minute drive home and by the time I had arrived I could barely see out of my right eye. I parked the car with the one eye closed. I went in and took Tylenol and pulled down the shades and laid my head down. I thought, it’s going to be better now. Just lay still and let the medicine work and you’ll be fine. But the pain was so intense that I felt as if I were about to vomit.

The neuralgia is so bad that you cannot get comfortable, every sound is amplified and only pitch black dark is dark enough. I slept the sleep of the dead, no rest, no dreams just a painless unconscieness. I woke hours later in the exact position that I had laid down in, the blanket and sheets where unruffled. I opened my eyes and momentarily felt better then the pain returned, fatigued and muffled but still as intense as before.

It felt as if there was an ice pick in my right eye that extended in a straight line up into my brain at a forty five-degree angle. I asked myself if perhaps I was having a stroke? A twenty-one year old having a stroke? It is possible, I know, but probable? The flu maybe? Or perhaps, a brain tumor? For those of you who have never experienced this, the word headache just simply doesn’t fully explain this illness it only describes the category and the symptoms.

I took more Tylenol and laid back down but this time I was unable to sleep. I turned on the TV with the sound down low. I got a wash cloth and a bowl of ice water and kept a cool cloth over my eyes and listened to the TV. As long as I stayed down and perfectly still the pain was manageable. But to get up and attempt any activity was to bring down upon yourself a full return of the worst symptoms full bore.

So any activity is attempted with great contemplation, it takes you so much time and effort to reach that stable platform that it won’t be risked for any mundane task until it is unavoidable. You don’t go to the restroom until you just must, these are the things that veteran suffers learn but as a beginner I did not know or understand.

I was hungry but even the idea of chewing hard or crunchy food was appalling. Besides, I couldn’t imagine going into the sunlit kitchen or out into the outdoor sunlight even if the house was on fire. Darkness and stillness were my only friends even in the face of smoke and flame. Soon, after it got dark I made a cheese sandwich by refrigerator light and lay back down. I slept again and again woke with the anticipation that my symptoms had retreated but again I was disappointed as soon as I began to stir. The pain was dulled with age and mollified with sleep but still reigned supreme over my life.

There is one more symptom that I call the crown of thorns, after you have achieved that stable platform of tolerable misery. You begin to think perhaps this is getting better and you attempt a regular activity and you discover this new symptom. Added to one side of your head feeling like a war zone with the violence punctuated with each heartbeat is the crown of thorns. A pain around the top of your skullcap that feels as if a crown of thorns is being pressed upon your head.

In ancient times they treated these headaches with blood letting and exorcisms and I promise you that any treatment that offered even a 1% chance of improvement would be endured. The migraine that I suffered Tuesday and Wednesday was mild by the standards of what I have endured in the past. I know now how to recognize that it is not an ordinary headache. But I missed all of the warning signs because I had not had one in well over a year or so. I craved sweets but attributed that to missing Halloween and I was constipated and my mood was elevated but I never made the connection. Even when I began to see flashes of light I attributed it to the fluorescent lighting which has been known to do that from time to time.

The migraine left me Wednesday night, the pain was gone but the other symptoms remained. A drugged out sense of euphoria that the pain was gone soon followed by a depression and paranoia grounded in a fear of the migraines return. Should I eat that? Should I attempt work? Should I go outside in the sunlight? Should I try to wear my reading glasses?

I write these words so that you the most fortunate of humanity who have never had your skull made into a battle ground can understand. That when someone says, I have a migraine it is not just a headache. It tends to run in families but I am the only one in my family to suffer with them. If you are an employer and an employee calls in with a migraine try to understand. They cannot operate machinery; they cannot be around bright lights or busy telephones. It is not even safe for them to drive a car; they can barely tolerate being alive. They would gladly endure the worst week at work in a lifetime in exchange for one migraine.

Symptoms of a migraine:

Moderate to severe pain, which may be confined to one side of the head or may affect both sides.

Head pain with a pulsating or throbbing quality

Pain that worsens with physical activity

Pain that interferes with your regular activities

Nausea with or without vomiting

Sensitivity to light and sound

Symptoms lasting from four to seventy-two hours