15th May

 Been taking it easy this week. Not workwise. But everything else wise. Lots of sleep. Early to bed.

And I've felt better for it.

Thursday rolled around, my last "official" working day of the week and I didn't feel as drained as usual. Which probably lead me to overdo it. Hazel asked me was I still working. I checked the time. 5.30pm. How long have you been working today she says. Mmm. I was up at 7.30am ? I don't know.

I've watched you she says. When you get absorbed in a problem you don't drink, you don't eat, you don't get up. You just forget your body and churn through a problem. For hours.

Uh huh. I took stock of my surroundings. I was sat there, one sock on, one sock half off, one trouser leg half up, slumped in the sofa, laptop perched on me, concentrating, oblivious.

She says its part of being hyperfocused. I'm beginning to see that I get absorbed and a day can whizz round without me taking a drink. I'm also starting to suspect that this is part of my "IT Super Power" - I might be atypical. A touch of.. something. I've scored quite "well" on ADHD tests recently. And who knew, hyperfocus is part of ADHD.

So Thursday I probably burned too hard. Not super hard. But too hard for me for a Thursday. And had trouble switching off. I tried going to sleep, couldn't. When I did get to sleep it was fitful, which set me up for. . . .

Friday. Covid shot day. A car trip of 40 minutes to the vaccination centre. Ok. Except. I woke up with the rumblings of a migraine. Oh no. Not today.

I nursed it. 3 aspirin. Went back to bed to squeeze as much dark rest time as I could before I had to leave.

I knew I was taunting the devil. If I don't follow a strict pattern with my migraines they punish me hard. And even if I do they can still give me a difficult time. I have a hole in my brain to prove it.

Fuck it. I am not cancelling.

So off I went. My hands by this time were freezing cold - sometimes a symptom of my migraines. Silver lining - it acted as a half decent cold compress on my head. 

Got there. Migraine rumbling. What are you doing. I'm going to fuck you over. My stomach blipped. Oh no. I sat in the car for 15 minutes, eyes closed, cold fingers pressed to my head. Ok, lets go.

I reflected on the joyous experiences of my life. What a pleasant skip through the world I have. Everday is a joy. As they say in Aliens, a day in the (marine) corps is like a day on the farm ! I love the corps !

Have you seen the original clash of the titans. Not the new CGI funky one. The old Ray Harryhausen stop motion wonder. There are scenes in there that always stick with me. Laurence Olivier playing Zeus. And the Gods messing with figurines of mortals. Cursing them or blessing them. Giving them gifts or problems to deal with. I sometimes imagine someone is up there fucking with me. Quick ! Give him a migraine ! Let's see how he deals with that today ! 15 Godly Dollars he throws up at the vaccination centre !

Ha.

Anyway. Shot received. Sit in recovery for 15 minutes.

The ironic thought crossed my mind that they were observing us for 15 minutes, and I probably looked like garbage. Rubbing my head. Eyes closed. Breathing purposefully controlled. I also pondered whether they had had a control test of giving the vaccine to someone enduring a migraine. Chances low. Perhaps I could be the guinea pig. Yay.

I got through the 15 minutes without puking. Somewhat surprising.

Drive home. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

The migraine was progressing. Oh so slowly. I think the aspirin were doing their best. But a mega dose of aspirin isn't enough to do it alone. Up and down, slow pulses. Very slowly getting worse.

Last 10 minutes, not good. Stomach blipping. Bowels blipping. Oh joy. The pre tremors of everything in your body about to go haywire. But no desperate sweats yet. Not quite over the edge. I considered just pulling up several times and sleeping it off. But I didn't - mainly because I figured the quality of rest I would get in a car would be terrible and probably not help. But if it got the to the cyclical vomit stage, I wouldn't have a choice.

There is a drag factor with my migraines. What you do now, doesn't always affect you now. It affects you in 15 minutes time. Or an hours time. Or something. If it's bad now, in 15 minutes time it's going to be killer if you're still acting like a dick. It's a weird thing. A bit like how you can sense they are coming before they properly hit. It's a known phenomenon "prodromes" and "auras", and if you get good at it, you can manage them before they become an ass.

So yeah. Bad now. I could feel it. I am going to pay for this. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I didn't want to be vomiting for the next few hours clinging to the loo with a killer head. Been there. Done that. Do not recommend the T Shirt.

Got home. Left everything in the car, dumped clothes, went immediately to bed.

Migraine bad. But not yet killer. Right on the edge. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Eventually I drifted off.

3 hours later I woke up. Migraine still kicking ass. I checked the time. Not good. My migraines usually ease down after 3 hours of rest. I went back to sleep.

Another hour. Still kicking. It felt... slightly different. It's hard to explain. I decided to give getting up a go. Sometimes - rarely, and if it's done after a lot of rest - it can nudge a migraine to leave. And after eating something light and taking it easy, it started to shift down a gear.

The tails of it left me some 12 hours after the initial pre-rumblings, and 6+ hours after I had got home. It was quite a bad one, but, luckily, carefully, whatever, I had avoided going nuclear with it. Which is always the goal. Nuclear migraines are horrific.

Today my head is fuzzy with that bad post migraine fuzziness. Like you've been kicked in the head a bit. I call it a bruised head. Not super bad. I've had far worse. But noticeable. And a good indication of the severity.

Why. Must everything I do be a goddamn trial. Why, couldn't I just turn up and get a vaccination shot like a normal person.

On the plus side, or maybe bad side if you are judging rough reactions to a good immune response, the vaccination shot so far doesn't seem to have any adverse effects. A slightly sore shoulder. And really. Slight. Compared to everything else it.. probably wouldn't even get a mention if I were not looking for it. I got the Pfizer one for the record. The mRNA one. One of the fancy bio-engineered ones as opposed to the old school munged up dead / half dead virus ones. I look forward to developing unintended mutant powers.

Maybe the Gods can have a roll of dice on it. Look up the affliction table. What does it say for a 9 ?

So long as they're having fun I guess.