Category Archives: Just me

Just me

Enrique in Peru with Chloera…

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It’s been 8 months or so that this headache has lasted. I figure I should name it, make it part of me, accept it if you will. It’s been with me a really long time and no longer feels like some foreign malady. It feels almost as though it has a personality, albeit a limited one. Like a snake, or guinea pig. It’s not over here contemplating great philosophical ideologies but there is the sense that it can tell I am heading toward it with food or that the doctor wants to do it harm during my visits.

What does one name an intractable migraine? Allen? Persimmon? Enrique?

How odd would it be to tell someone I have had Enrique every day for 8 months?

Hmm… I think they might get the wrong idea.

Peru? Australia? Greece?

I have been wandering about Australia for the past 8 months. That’s better, less lascivious anyway. Although people would expect me to have seen Australia and ask me questions about it.

Crap.

I guess I will just stick with Migraine. I could call it Thyphoid or Cholera but I am pretty sure the CDC would come find me if it became widely known that I have been potentially infecting people for months on end.

 

Chronic Pain, Just me, Migraine

To Distraction!

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Did you know that focusing directly on your pain can inhibit your body’s ability to produce pain fighting endorphins?

Apparently if you hurt and you lie there thinking about it you can actually make yourself hurt more. This may be why I feel better when watching t.v. or reading a book than I do when trying to go to sleep at night or waking up first thing in the morning. Having something distract me from my discomfort has been more helpful than any pain killer.

The trick is managing the distractions in a way that doesn’t use up all my spoons. I can visit with people a couple of times a week but the gatherings have to be small and end early or else I sleep for days afterwards and feel like I can never wake up. I can work and clean, but I have to have days to rest in between. When I am resting I have to have distraction with minimal effort.

So how do I rest with minimal distraction and still improve my mind? After all, there are only so many hours one can watch television or read before going quietly mad and if I crochet one more hat I am going to strangle someone with yarn.

Don’t worry. I have plans. Evidence blogs, coding classes, sign language classes online, app development classes. The whole kit and caboodle. I may need to lie down and rest a lot, but there is a lot a person can do lying down.

Chronic Pain, Just me, Migraine

Fading out…

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I missed the huge Memorial Day BBQ my friends were having.

I wanted to go. I wanted to see everyone. I just couldn’t. I thought about a room filled with dozens of people laughing and talking over each other, children running around and playing, music, etc. I thought about myself, sitting in a corner, watching it all happen around me as my headache slowly began to build to an intolerable level.

My photophobia and phonophobia are such that I can’t be at large, loud parties without developing a debilitating headache within about an hour.

It’s been 8 months of headaches every day and I feel myself fading out of friend groups, excursions, and social life.

It makes me so sad and angry and frustrated. I want to be at the big loud parties, the group events. I want to share in the moments these beloved people are making together. It’s yet another thing that I feel has been taken from me.

I am disappearing from the world I used to belong to.