Oh, how very pleasant for you

Google alerts yanked this Huffington Post blog post for me last night. It's about coming to terms with migraines.

I'm not going to argue with her on the extent to which her changes helped her, and I do think I could stand to implement a couple things she suggests. I'm happy for what she says:

after fourteen years of desperately trying every remedy under the sun - every drug, every herb, every abstinence, every kind of healer from traditions all over the world, I finally found something, last year, that helped ease the pain: words.

In fact, Jennie Nash quotes Joan Didion who says:

I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I... And now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie down and let it happen...[and] when the pain recedes...I count my blessings.

I'm happy for them both.

I have learnt to accept that the pain will come, but I feel like I'm betraying the side by doing so. Still, I can't stop it. I don't fight the migraines anymore, but I can't see welcoming them as friend. Neighbour perhaps, but why friend? What do I get out of it that makes it a friendship?

Jennie talks about detailed migraine logging. I don't. It depresses me. I could. I could note that I woke up into a 6 (which is great considering yesterday's pain), ate a few bites of leftover marinara, a slice of harddough bread with apricot preserves and a mouthful of orange juice. After a shower, the migraine was up to a 9.

How much do I write? That it's on the right side? That the nausea is low? If I get more nauseous in an hour do I write that too? How could I look at that tome of pain and still feel vaguely friendly?

But mostly it's her #6 that gets me...

6. Know that the pain will recede. Because it always does.

Thanks, Jennie. Except the doctor told me to stop waiting for it to recede. Day 7 of a severe migraine isn't doing anyone any favours. Which is why after I finish typing this up I'll get dressed and head out to the ER. I do hope the pain will recede. I will count my blessing when it does. But don't ask me to be friendly towards the pain that's driving me back to the hospital. That's not sensible.