that old mortal feeling

Last night the migraine arrived after much quiet knocking. At least it had the patience to wait until after work and some miles on the bike. I went to bed at 11 feeling awful, and woke up at 3am to puke. I woke up every hour til 8am doing the same thing. Puking my guts out.

I'm about to go to bed and I'm still kinda recovering--I feel a little disoriented, a little stumbly and forgetful. These things pass. Of course the real bit I'm struggling with is how I feel emotionally after being migraine free for 10 days. That is a long period of time for me. I wasn't feeling "cured" but I was feeling alive. Alive. I felt limitless, but not reckless. I can't describe that type of amazing. Obviously I feel the sting after being sick last night.

A pause here to kind of explain my migraine recovery. The first day after a migraine sucks in its own special way. Total newborn status. I'm exhausted, uncomfortable, and more often than not I am still in some pain. Emotions are pressed up to the surface. This specific kind of melancholy while the serotonin fills back up. At the same time it feels like a miracle to sit upright, to walk, to engage in a conversation. That shit feels incredibly surreal after feeling what feels like dying. But then there you are, the other side.

All this to say I'm okay with it. One migraine in ten days? That's huge. It's getting better. I'm staying steady with my diet and exercise. My butterbur arrived in the mail on Saturday so I've added that to the arsenal. Super B, magnesium, butterbur daily.

This migraine wasn't as awful as it could've been(even though throwing up so much always sucks and makes things a bit more difficult...as in ever throw up while your head is being pulled apart?). The thing that helped me the most was staying calm. I hate getting sick but knew it was going to happen. All I could do was make myself as comfortable as possible and go with it. When I couldn't get quite over the edge I would just do a neck roll and for some reason that would trigger the lurch in my stomach perfectly. I'm proud of myself for staying calm. I didn't cry and I didn't feel helpless. Today I recovered by doing what I had to do--forced myself to eat a little something, slept and slept and slept. But I didn't baby myself--as soon as I could, I got moving. The sooner I caught up with my "normalcy" the better I felt emotionally. You get up, you get back in the game. While I've always known it and believed it, that attitude is fairly new to me with this stuff. I feel much more in control since making changes. And last night's pain can't take away those 10 days. Onward.