snapshot

(a Monday)

At the bus stop shifting my weight from foot to foot, constantly fidgeting, head leaning to the left, trying to read the book in my hands but failing. I am fighting for my composure, praying for my bus to appear. I have a migraine and I want to go home. I made it all day at work and now it's time to truly die.

Or no, maybe not death. More like I am on my way to the gallows, not yet gone. As if I'm leaving to go abroad for months or years and with each hour passing I am saying goodbye quietly to everything I know to be familiar. I am about to spill into the looking glass--this is our moment before the leap.

I look up, panicked. Someone is smoking nearby. The scent takes my head in heavy palms, cracks it in multiple places before shoving it back down on my neck. A smell that goes right to the pain and squeezes it. I try to move without making a scene. The sick part of me wants to confront the smoker but there is no use. They have no way of knowing.

And on the bus. I move seats three times on the bus just to escape triggering smells. Two are perfumes, one is stale cigarette and booze. These smells bring tears to my eyes. Life feels completely unfair. Everything in the world hurts me. I do not understand it. In my growing migraine delirium I start to assume that these people were sent to be my obstacles, life's cruel way of handing me much more than I can hold. When the truth is these are normal scents for the most part, there on a daily basis but never noticed until they become trouble. How snobbish a nose grows from well to sickness.

As the pain grows and throbs and curls and spits on the left side of my head, I try to construct descriptions. What is this pain exactly? I think of Andrew Levy's book, how exact he manages to describe attacks. At least somebody can say it. The pain is...blank space. Wherever the pain is, there's the blank. But the blank, of course, isn't blank. The blank is hot white. It is looking at the sun. It is all I know of storms, crammed into a segment of head. It is everything dark and wrong. It isn't me. It turns me into a shadow of self. The wrong side. Hence looking glass. It feels like madness--drill bits, canker sores, infection, mallets, nail beds, banjo pluck of nerve endings, the removal of balance, speech, movement. The idiot company of nausea, the clinging to things. It takes me away. It brings me back. This happens until I start to wonder which is normal. I don't understand being homesick for both.

white nailed on the wagon

Life's been good. Really good. Spring is here, and that always helps to boost the mood. And a boosted mood means less tension emotionally and physically, which means I can relax more, which means less pain. Which is a very very good thing.

I am still taking my supplements every day. Still reading the label of everything I ingest. This month I fell off track a little bit, in regards to taking care of meals myself. I get busy and/or I get home late and feel too lazy to cook meals ahead of time. This needs to change. The guilt of it is already eating at me. I haven't had a smoothie in a week. But if one falls, then one must simply get back up. So definitely starting the day off with a smoothie tomorrow.

Earlier this week I woke up with a pretty gnarly migraine. I knew I couldn't miss work--I was filling in for the receptionist and I'm out of time off for the month. At first I was really worried about getting to work, and making it through my day AND through my plans in the evening. I decided to give the whole "don't panic" thing a shot and breathed my way through the early a.m. I suited up for the ride and took the bike into work instead of the bus. The fresh air and exercise is often a wonderful help when it comes to my head pain. Blood pumping, lungs filling. It works for me. Before I hopped on the bike I took an Aleve. I drank water throughout the day and avoided all my food triggers. And I couldn't believe it: by 3pm I had shoved the pain completely out of my body.

That simply...never happens to me. If I have it, then I have it. It's hard for me to override the progression once it starts...especially if I find myself waking up with a migraine. But I did it.

I am feeling like a different person these days. I had a bunch of dead hair cut off my head and it feels pretty damn good. I've also been writing a lot these past few months...the truth is, with less migraines each week, I can get more done. It truly feels like I am blessed with extra days. I used to never have a Monday night wtihout some sort of head pain. Now, for the past 2 weeks I've been able to get out and do things on that evening. I find myself with all of this extra time and...opportunity. I can commit to social things, see people I adore, and workout every day like I want to. Less frequent pain means I have more free time, and it also means I am generally happier and less tense. My anxiety is starting to feel much more manageable. I fear these suckers so much...I'm not surprised in my new found level of calm.

My next goal is to find a therapist that I click with. I'm ready to tackle the emotional triggers. I've been in a push-me-pull-me state with it for most of my life...now I feel like I am ready to let all of it go. Getting my hair cut last weekend really triggered something in me in regards to being lighter. That lightness. I deserve it. I want it. I'm ready to fight for it and make it mine.

I have also started to reread A Brain Wider than the Sky, by Andrew Levy. I love ths book so much, more than any other text/literature written about migraines. I am maybe 3 pages in and already I have had tears in my eyes while reading. It feels like a miracle to read about this illness in a language that I can understand and relate to.

Bottom line: I am feeling less and less like an illness and more and more like a person. Someone that can function and can make plans AND take care of myself. So far so great.

update

The new diet is quickly becoming simply "my intake." The newness is fading. It is now a normal morning function--set up the blender, dump in my fruit, juice and flax seeds...fill my pill sorter with my daily intake. Some stats:

Supplements:

2 butterbur/day
2 magnesium/day
2 calcium & vitamin d/day
1 B Complex vitamin

Daily smoothie
blueberries, strawberries, orange-pineapple juice, flax seeds, cherries
(ingredients rotate depending on what I'm in the mood for)

I keep breakfast simple. Smoothie, Special K with Berries, 1 cup. Or an egg beater omelette with salsa on the weekend. I cook a lot more these days. I think it's simply par for the course when you are trying to weed out over processed foods and things like msg, corn syrup. I haven't had chinese take out since this whole thing started...at least 2 months now. I no longer miss it.

Grocery shopping continues to be quite the adventure--I read the labels of everything. No matter how much I might crave/want it, if it has too many ingredients and/or ingredients I can't pronounce, then I put it back. The one thing breaking this rule is caffeine. I vow to one day put down the soda.

I've been sleeping like a champ. If I'm having trouble, I take a melatonin and that does the trick.

I haven't had a bad migraine in about 2 weeks.

Every day I ride at least 10 miles on the bike trainer. Spin class at least once a week. Today I rode into work. As the weather warms up I'm excited for my mileage to increase as well. The hills were very easy today. Felt great.

All this to say I've found some things that work for me in terms of pain management and relief. It is not perfect, and I'm not "cured," by my goodness life has gotten so much better. Easier. I can commit to things and show up as opposed to having to cancel due to pain. I feel great about these changes and this is just the beginning.