I have identified two constants in my life:
1- The most dreaded part of mostly any given day is when I have to try to mumble out a coherent email to a professor, explaining, yet again, why I won’t be in class.
2- The most depressing thing in the world seems to be waking up these days.
As for point one, it never gets any easier. I always feel so damned stupid. So…idiotic. In my mind, I see the prof reading it and thinking “Again?! Fucking stupid little girl. What a waste of my highly intelligent time. She’s wasting my time. Why even bother going to school if you’re going to cop-out because of one silly little headache?”
I hate it. I hate having to draw up these emails, having to excuse myself for shit I can’t control. And it’s not like I can get doctor’s notes for migraines, so I always fear that the prof feels like I’m just making up excuses and am lying. Which is so damned far from the truth.
I appreciate when profs respond by saying that they have had a migraine too, so they “know how you feel.” But, I know it sounds childish, but if you have not had the constant pounding pain, knife digging into your skull and making your eye hurt to blink, dizzying, the sun seems to have taken up residence in whatever room you walk into, the busses seem to have decided to make extra noise today and have rallied all traffic to help, nausea inducing pleasure of having migraines almost every day for 3 weeks, then you can not sympathize like you’re trying to do. Sorry Prof.
As for point two, it’s true. I know from other migraine sufferers (and from personal experience) that, once the migraine goes away, there’s this intense sense of euphoria that follows! I remember being in grade two, and being up at 4am, having awoken from a migraine-induced sleep that I fell into at, like, 4pm. The pain was gone. The lights were out. I was a million-times hungry because I clearly didn’t eat supper, probably skipped lunch too, and knowing me in grade 2, spent the day throwing up. No one was awake, it was just me. I remember tip-toeing downstairs and out the door, drinking juice, sitting at the edge of the driveway, watching the lightning pass by from the storm that had most likely caused the migraine earlier in the day. Mom used to come out and find me there, tsk’ing me, telling me to go inside and watch tv if I had to, “just get inside.”
It used to be, some 5 years ago, that if I had a migraine, I knew, knew, that after I went to sleep (to sleep it off), when I woke up, it would be gone! Gone gone gone!!
But now, I go to sleep thinking “And, when I wake up, it’s going to be GONE!” then I wake up, and it’s still there. That is the most depressing thing in the world for me these days, and I can’t handle anymore of it.
I have had either multiple headaches/migraines, or else one long migraine, for almost 3 weeks straight now.
I actually broke down and cried in front of my dad when he was down because it’s just so frustrating.
When I saw our family doctor, she asked how many Advil I take a week. I told her I was taking Advil pretty much every other day. She told me that I should keep doing that. That it was a good idea. She clearly knows nothing and needs to go back to med school because, and I quote from TheMigraineTrust.org,
There is a condition called 'medication overuse headache', that has been linked with over-using pain killers…Some patients with medication overuse have daily headache, when it is called Chronic Daily Headache, meaning headache on at least fifteen days in any one month. The term means only that the headache is frequent; it can have many causes other than medication overuse…Therefore, rather than managing migraine, regular use of these drugs on more than three days a week can actually make the headaches worse. It is important to avoid over-using medication. You should get medical advice if you are using painkillers on more than three days a week.
Ya, nice “medical advice” Dr. Higgins.
She then gave me Maxalt, a strong triptan drug that’s supposed to help with cluster and migraine headaches. I only take it if I’m not nauseous, and if I really really have to.
When I went to the Naturopath, I told her this, and that the main reason I went to see her was because I’m not comfortable with filling my body with chemicals. So I’ve been taking magnesium at night and have cut out milk. It all seemed to be working over the summer, but now…now they’re back.
This is just…just getting ridiculous. Just really ridiculous.
They’re affecting my school work, now. I can’t make it through an entire week of classes. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.
I joined a Migraine group on Facebook, they have a list of commonalities between migraine sufferers. I personally associate myself with the following:
1- You always seem to get a migraine when you’ve planned a really good day/night out whether it be a friends birthday, a meal, day out to a theme park or even your own birthday!
2- A school trip has been completely ruined and then too top it off you end up throwing up on the coach home. (Grade 11 World Religions field trip, I didn’t throw up though. I almost did, when we went to visit the Mosque. I spent the entire hour there plotting where I would run if I needed to get sick.)
3- When you get a migraine at work there’s always one smart ass that says “ Oh it’s ONLY a headache it can’t be that bad!” (It happen(s/ed) at school, repeatedly. Or else I get the “Oh, another little headache? Gosh! *rolls eyes*” look from people. Hence why I don’t like talking about them anymore.)
4- You can’t bare anyone talking to you and usually end up snapping at anyone who dares even if they are our lovely loved ones.
5- You run a hot bath as it seems to make it feel better but it lasts like 5 minutes as you end up getting too hot and bothered. (Shower.)
6- You have to have a shower with a candle as a light as the normal bathroom light seems like the sun has set up home in the bathroom ceiling! (I used to use the nightlight at home, here in London, I just cope with the lights off.)
7- When all you want to do is sleep but your in so much pain and usually having those little yellow dots dancing around in front of your eyes that you just can’t nod off.
8- If you can’t get to sleep you can’t even watch T.V.
9- When every tiny sound is magnified by like 110%.
10- When you have to travel home from work, school, uni etc and it feels like you’ve just had to go through an epic journey across the world! (So many times! Bus rides are horrid ordeals with a migraine.)
11- You’ve taken more than the normal dosage of painkillers in a desperate attempt to rid yourself of the pain.
12- You get one eye that seems really sleepy and the other eye that’s wide awake?
13- Your worried that when the time comes your migraines might actually ruin your wedding day.
14- You’ve banged your head against the headboard as that pain takes your mind off the astronomical pain you’re already in.
15- You’ve claimed you would rather be dead than suffer with the pain anymore.
It’s true, though. Some days, while in my bed with my arm draped over my eyes in a vain attempt to keep the light out, I can rationalize the cutting off of my own head. Or the simple act of overdosing on Advil. It happens more often than I care to admit.
My migraines, to put it simply, are ruining my life, and no one, not even us sufferers, can offer any way to help. I can’t sleep the entire week! That’s just not an option! Even though, according to “specialists,” that’s the “best” way to get rid of them. “Specialists,” pah! If you were really a specialist, you’d be able to help me!
I saw on the news that it’s been discovered that women who suffer from migraines have a something% less chance of getting breast cancer (because of the estrogen in migraine drugs or something,) which is great. Yay, hurrah. So, you fancy shmancy scientists and “specialists” spent aaaallll that time and aaaallll that money to tell us ladies that we might not get cancer, as our heads throb and pound and we miss work and school because we’re too busy with our “little headaches” and our “tiny bit of nausea” to walk properly, speak, read anything, watch the news that you’re on, or live a proper life?
Ridiculous.
I don’t know what to do anymore.
And I’m terrified that I’ll be suffering from migraines when the family goes to California to visit Alexandra at Christmas. That I’ll be in such astronomical pain that I wont be able to enjoy, or even fully register, the one day that we’re going to Disneyland.
This is just ridiculous.
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