Yeah, well, I do

She Still Will Not Complain

Another woman who calls her migraines a friend--but at least she seems to do it in a smack-talking sort of a way.

she now gets by with 16 prescription medications, 9 over the counter pills, and weekly shots at the Diamond Headache Clinic of dolophine (Methadone) for pain and promethazine (Phenergan) for nausea. On the afternoon I saw her, she described the sharp headache behind her left eye as about average for her — a “6″ (10 being the worst). But because of the dramatic weather changes outside, she rated her second, more diffuse, headache — which emerged in 2001 on the back of her head and down her neck — as higher-than-average, a “7”).

Ha! I'm lucky--I don't take as much medication as she does, and my hospital visits aren't as regimented, but it sure looks familiar. Not to mention the simultaneous headaches. I haven't tied mine to the weather yet, though.

All in all, she sounds like a tough old broad--tougher than I am, for ill or not.

Sometimes not looking like you're in pain isn't about being tough or strong--sometimes it's simply about not wanting to go into any sort of detail.

I have to say, Siri Hustvedt blogging at the NY Times is more sensible than the last one I linked to. I think she's a bit whack when she ascribes some marginal positivity to the affliction by considering them as a regulating force in her life, preventing her from overdoing and overfeeling.

I'm so far from over- right now, it's not funny. I just want to do, and to feel.

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.