Aug 5

 Today a kick ass migraine crept up on me.

It's been a while since I've had a real bad one, and this one, was a good old school, you're going to die this time, migraine. One where the basic functioning of your nervous system goes really haywire.

Got up, not too bad, streamed a little, got up to make lunch, watched some tv whilst lunch cooked. And got a headache. An ache over the right eye ( uh oh ). Just a headache. I thought. So I turned off the tv and napped.

This, was a mistake.

Somewhere in my dreams I had a piercing pain in my head.

I woke up. To a nail driven in over my right eye, radiating across my forehead to the left. Uhh. This. Uh. Feels like a migraine ? But without a lot of the other bullshit around it ?

5 minutes later, the other bullshit turned up. The pain went from horrifying to off the scale.

As is the way, I broke out into a massive involuntary sweat all over. Pouring sweat, dripping down my face. Niiicce. At the same time, your body feels icy cold. Because it's dumping all the heat away from your core via dilated blood vessels and sweat. Hence you get the weird thing. Sweating copiously. And shivering.

Yayyyy. I realised I was fucked.

I am not exactly sure what the body thinks it is doing here. It dilates your blood vessels to the max, which then dumps all your body heat and lowers your core temp. Perhaps it's a reaction to the pressure in your head ? Or perhaps that *is* the pressure in your head - dilated vessels squeezing. Or maybe it's just the migraine causing merry hell and sitting on all the control buttons up there. Windscreen wipers on. Doors opening and closing. Blinkers going on and off.

I sent a message to Hazel - pls chk on me in a bit. Because I always fear I will cark it and poor Athena will be left on her own. And this was bad. Really bad. Brain melting out of ears bad.

Grabbed 3 aspirin ( it's too late but, fuck it ), and tried to sleep.

You don't sleep when it's that bad. Every single breath is counted, and it throbs on every breath. Can't think. Any kind of half baked arrrrrgggg thought makes it worse - it's a trick I have learned. You have to empty your head. Completely. It helps a little. Don't ask me why.

And secondarily you have to calm. Mimic a sleep rhythm. Even though you are present, agony. Pretend like you're asleep.

No mean feat when you're sweating bullets, it's sliding down your face and dripping off your mouth. Sweat was dripping into my mouth at this point. Salty. But I didn't move. Or lick. Or do anything. Pretend like you're dead. Anything else makes it worse.

At some point. Hopefully. The body gets the message of the mimicry of being asleep / dead. Oh. We are asleep ? And you can doze and tap out of being conscious, kinda. This is the same trickery you can do with breathing to try and calm anxiety or yada. Force your breathing into a pattern, and the rest of you follows. Sometimes. The cart leading the horse.

I felt the rest of me starting to slide. Nausea roiled around threatening to make me vomit. My guts started loosening. The other end threatening to come out in sympathy. Ah. The wonder ping pong migraine. Agonising headache. Vomit. 20 seconds of relief. Back to sledgehammer in head. Shit your brains out. Vomit. Repeat. Slowly getting into more of a state as you go on. Also. Forget any kind of hygiene. Just a puddle of disaster and misery. For hours.

I struggled to not throw up. I knew if I did, that would be it. I would be in the see saw. And. I'd throw up the aspirin. I needed them to kick in. I needed to get to sleep. Lose consciousness.

Be calm. Slow. Empty head. 

And slowly I got there.

Before I tapped out I did actually feel the aspirin have a tiny effect. Each spike of pain was just a teeny bit less. I have no idea how long that took.

2.5 hours later I woke up. No headache. No pain.

Suspicious.

30 seconds later. A grumble over my right eye. Another 30 seconds later a headache.

The after rumbles of a storm passed. But tricky. Fuck around. Or get it wrong. And it wheels around and comes back.

I didn't move. I contemplated my options. Sleep again. Get up ? I felt sick.

2.5 hours is kinda short for a migraine for me.

Sigh. I made a choice.

I got up and ate the dinner that I cooked that had been sitting in the oven for 5 hours. Fortunately the smart oven turns itself off, so, no burned food.

I know at this point in my journey with migraines that *sometimes* eating something, even though you feel sick, actually moves the migraine on. Get the timing wrong and you will get the reverse. It's delightful. Not eating however can sometimes extend the after shocks by hours.

Eating made me feel better.

Just like that, a whole afternoon had vanished.

Another migraine. In as many months. And this one was a kicker. I was sleeping when it kicked in ( that's new ), so I did not correctly adjust for it before it got bad. This is new information for me however. If I even suspect a migraine *before* I sleep, I need to take meds. Noted.

3 500mg aspirin still seems to be the absolute best approach. You're going to suffer. Oh yes. But the aspirin either head the worst off before it gets to you, or, if you can keep them down, shorten the duration.

Oh well.

Yesterday I probably overdid it.

And today you had a kick ass migraine you say ? Well well.

Shut up.

Yesterday I did my swim. I actually did 37 lengths. 925m. So over half a mile. I didn't stop a lot this time. My stamina and strength are a lot better now. I can keep going, although 50m of crawl I find tiring, not as you might think on the arms, but on the legs.

Afterwards I went for a walk with Athena. For an hour.

Also. I didn't drink or eat anything the whole day.

Brilliant.

I went for a walk with Hazel. She admonished me for my day. Stupid.

Can't disagree.

She forced me to drink water.

I think I might have ADHD I said. I forget to eat and drink. Uh huh she said. You have really bad hyperfocus. When you work you don't eat, drink, get up, go to the loo or anything.

Mmm.

Apparently that's bad.

I flagged on the latter bit of the walk. The sudden conjunction of a lot of excercise, no food, no water caught up with me.

So I sat for a while whilst Hazel amused the mutts.

On the way home she regaled me with tales of her boyfriends attempts at cooking. A cottage pie of all things ( he's American ). And figuring that a glass of red wine in the recipe was the same as a glass of red wine vinegar. Oh dear.

This evening I have a little bit of a post migraine glow. I am happy to be here. I am happy to not be in awful pain. The world feels full of possibilities and good things.

It will fade, it always does. It's just my body's response to a period of truly fundamental misery.