Migraine

My saxophone teacher had left a message asking if I could come in for my lesson at 7:30 PM (instead of my regular 8:30 PM). I called at about 6 PM and left a message that I would be there. No more than 20 minutes later, I started getting signs of a migraine, so Andrew called back and cancelled my lesson.

As if it isn’t enough that I’ve had a headache for the past four and a half months. (Not a headache every day for the past several months, but the same headache. I wake up with it. I fall asleep with it. Yes, I’ve been seeing a doctor. Yes, we think we know what it is. No, we haven’t quite gotten rid of it, but it is far more manageable that it was for much of February and March.) I suppose I was due — I haven’t had a migraine since September. I just hope that this isn’t the beginning of two or three in a row (which happens about half the time).

I feel somewhat fortunate that my migraines come with an aura. Before I get the full-blown headache, my vision fuzzes out in patches for 20 minutes to an hour. I know that once my vision starts to return, I’m going to be one hurting woman. Unless I do something during the aura. That’s why I feel fortunate — I have some time during which I can usually prevent the full-blown, let-me-die-now-or-at-least-chop-off-my-head, headache.

If I pop some ibuprofen or Excedrin and get into a dark room (or cover my eyes with something) and stay still until the fuzziness stops, I usually only have a splitting headache (a great improvement from the holy-crap-what-horrible-thing-did-I-do-in-my-past-life-to-deserve-this headache).

Of course, for the rest of the day, I feel a bit out of it. My aunt and I call this “the stupids”. It’s a little like watching your life from a dream for the rest of the day. I also get a bit dizzy, and I have a hard time doing anything that requires any brainpower (thus, I usually spend the day in front of the TV).