17th Feb

 Brutal migraine today.

Headache came on quickly, and, I simply opted to go to sleep with it. It didn't, at that point, feel like a migraine, or a warning for a migraine.

Couldn't sleep with it, and it slowly travelled across my head to my typical migraine spot. An inch above my right eye.

Hmmm.

I got up and took the Migraine Aspirin Response Dose. 3x500mg. Went back to bed.

Within a few minutes, the migraine was kicking my ass.

Nasty. I broke into a migraine sweat. Shivering cold, but with a burning outside, ultra flush. You can feel your cheeks burning with it. Sweating absolute bullets, t-shirt soaked. Ah yes. The wiring goes bonkers.

My nausea response tickled. Thought about going nuclear. Didn't. But repeated a few times. My shits response tickled, but didnt go anywhere.

This time. There was also a new thing.

My hands kept going numb. Pins and needles. And. A weird sensation in my chest and dizziness. The migraine was combining with some heart palpitation nonsense.

Oh boy.

It got bad. At one point, down in the familiar depths of, oh, am I going to die, it crossed my mind that my time was up. The not one thing. But the many things stacked on top of each other. I also reflected that it didn't matter. That was fine. It was going to be horrible and painful and I wish it was better, but, let's go.

Come or go I started doing mind discipline stuff. This I have found can be important with kick ass migraines. You have to empty your head. Not easy. My thoughts kept skittering off into random, crazy images and spaces, nothing rational, just, weirdnesses.

I have found, if you can empty your head completely, shut down all thinking, or, second best, focus on a single calming scene, it can help. And. Crucially, can get you into sleep which provides a reasonable anaesthetic and time skipper to the pain. It's not easy. And if it gets too out of hand, you wont be able to do it. There is definitely a subtle connection between calming your brain and slightly easing a migraine, as if all the neuron firing just makes it worse, but making it all go quiet gives it room to de-escalate.

I dunno how long I lie there, eyes closed, waves of bullshit going over me, fighting back and forth. Time gets funny in that state. Minutes feel like hours. Hours feel like minutes. But eventually, I made it into sleep and drifted away.

Best result.

So I am here still. Didn't kick the bucket. Obviously.

My life is a never ending stream of fun and good times, and absolutely does not continue to torture me.

Ho ho.

I think the migraine was actually forseeable. I skipped my mental meds for a good few days before going back on them. And sometimes. Rarely. That can trigger migraines. Because of the serotonin. I've had it before, and on some serotonin drugs, they will 100% guarantee a nasty migraine in me. It's part of the tricky dance you can play with them, avoiding the oh so easily annoyed serotonin syndrome. Go check it out. Serotonin Syndrome.

Yesterday Hazel asked for help, so, drove her to get her delayed meds - she assured me the day before was not her fault, stupid pharmacy telling her lies about stock - and whilst I waited I felt more and more ill. Sitting in the car. Feeling just that oh so familiar ill. Shit. Awful.

Just before that I had been asleep, sleeping of another headache.

So. Two days running, if you look back in hindsight, probable migraines or migraine near misses perhaps. And Other Stuff. But yeah.

I wont go into the rest of the Other Stuff. But my heart seems to be giving me issues again. Just like before. My circulation is crap. I had purple lips the other day. Not a good sign.

Eh well, fuck it eh.

Whilst I was sleeping my migraine off, I think towards the end of my sleep I dreamed of my mom. She was still working as a cook in a school. I sent her a text message asking if she was done for the day, I could pick her up. She had to stay. A key she had.

It's all anachronistic. My mom was not working in the era of phones. And I was too young to drive. And yada blah. Just a mish mash of crap.

But.

Despite our really shitty history. The absolute warfare. It seems, in the end, my memories and feelings of my mom are good ones. I again reflect that the years I spent talking with her towards the end in hindsight was really good for our relationship. It repaired all those bridges. I saw a little of who she was under all the shit and trauma. And she saw a little of me. Hum ho.

I am not super life crashingly sad about it. It is sad. As per usual, I will never agree with death. It's shit. And I wish she was still here. I miss her and I miss our conversations, and looking back, I wish we had more time.

It is sadly true what they say, that sometimes you don't realise what you have, until you lose it. Perhaps I am just super sentimental. But I don't think so here.

I still talk to her briefly on occasion. As if she's still around, listening to me. I don't say much. Hi mom. Sorry mom. Hope you're doing ok. But I say it out loud. And I feel like at those times the ghost of her floats past.