Migraines

If you're a migraine sufferer, you already know the list of symptoms that accompany this most fun of all headaches. If you're not, they can (but don't have to) include light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, painful throbbing behind only one eye, heightened sense of smell, aversion to heat, nausea, and so on. If you're lucky like me, all of these hit you like a ton of bricks. But, if you're like me, you are too stupid to put life on hold and get rid of the migraine before you go about your day. Sometimes, if you do what I don't and climb back into bed, you can catch the migraine while minor amounts of drugs will take care of it and before it blows up in your head, completely debilitating you. Like I said, though, I don't tend to do this so I'm at the mercy of my own stupidity and have to pray hard that massive amounts of powerful drugs will knock out the now raging pounding going on in my head.

The good news? Massive amounts of drugs did work today although I still feel weak as a kitten from them and I'm headed back to bed in mere minutes. The bad news? I had a wing-ding of a time getting to this point because, well, today I decided that going to a movie with R. was a good plan, throbbing head be d@mned! Every choice I made snowballed into something worse and I could kick myself for it (or I could if I wasn't afraid that the throbbing would come back if I did).

We went to see Madagascar 2 with a neighbor and her daughters. I didn't drive myself. Good for the environment, very bad for the suffering. Thinking that perhaps some caffeine would help the head, I got a medium (but have you seen the size of a medium soda at the movies lately? Sheesh! The Titanic could sink in that cup) soda and a medium popcorn (also stupidly oversized). We went into the movie and settled in. My head felt marginally better when the lights went down but then the Dolby Surround sound or whatever system they use assaulted my ears. Now I generally think I am going deaf but when I have a migraine, I can hear a pin drop three states away so why I thought getting my eardrums root canaled at a theater was a good idea is beyond me. I am also severely light sensitive as well so even though I viewed the previews from behind closed eyelids (and I do mean viewed since they were so bright as to burn through my lids) my head started pounding harder. Concentrate on drinking soda and hope that caffeine infusion will calm head. Suck, suck, suck. Stomach is starting to roil. Better have some popcorn to absorb some of the extra acid. Chew, chew, chew. Suck, suck, suck. Completely miss major chunks of the movie while breathing slowly and deliberately and trying to convince tummy to stop the somersaults. Upon realizing that the nausea was rising and my efforts at mind over matter were failing miserably (you can recognize this stage easily because even swallowing your own spit makes your gag reflex kick-in), I excused myself down the row and sprinted to the bathroom. There is very little worse than throwing-up in a public bathroom. And popcorn hurts on the return trip. So I swabbed myself down (I was clammy and sweaty all at once) and returned to the movie. Now normally throwing up helps the migraine subside but no such luck today. It just made things hurt more. The light and sound from the movie pulsed brighter and echoed louder and I squirmed up and down in my seat trying to find a position that kept the continuing nausea at bay. Blessed relief when the movie was over. But then my neighbor wanted a refill on her popcorn and we stood by the refreshment stand for that. By then, my sense of smell had sharpened accutely and I started to sweat with the effort of not vomiting right there as the smell of stale popcorn and whatever that yellow brick of fat they pop it in is called swirled around me. We finally get outside the theater into the cold air and Q. says she's forgotten her jacket inside. I would have cried but that would have made my head pound harder, plus the cold air was helping miniscule amounts. We get in the car and since T. is from Texas, the cold is killing her and the heat is jacked way up in the car. We made it a whole 5 minutes before I had to beg her to turn it off. As a fellow migraine sufferer, she totally understood though (thank heaven) and even turned the air on for me. This is probably the only thing that kept me from asking her to pull off the road to be sick again (or maybe mind over matter works briefly in certain cases). But I had to bolt out of the car as soon as we got home, without even a thank-you for driving. I made it into the house, ran past D., who had just gotten home from a business trip, and promptly rid my stomach of the few remnants left in it. And actually, a book I just read described what happens physiologically when you throw-up (I know, I know, I read strange stuff) so I also cleared the upper portion of the small intestine too. Even so, I choked down a massive dose of meds on a wing and a prayer that it would stay down and headed to bed. I've been up for an hour now, ate a small dinner, and think I'll crawl back into my blessedly dark and quiet room now.

For those of you who don't get migraines, aren't you glad?!