From Dawn to Dusk... the journal |
Wednesday, February 13, 2002 * the day after... Migraine hit around noon yesterday on my way home from getting my hair cut. Had stopped at a little gift shop and noticed while reading the Valentine cards that my eyes were screwed up... lines don't run together and there's this zig-gag... (Remember thinking, " Oh sh--, here we go again.") This is my first warning of the onset of a Migraine. So I hurriedly left the shop and headed home. Arrived just in time for the mental dissociation to start... where you can't quite keep things sharp and clear in your mind and if someone talks to you, the words are there, but they don't register logically.. I find this part scary. I groped around the house to find my medication. Finally swallowed my pill, turned off the lights, closed the blinds and climbed into bed. I lay there until almost supper time with a pain over my left eye (not too bad). By 5:00, I took another pill and got up and ate something. Back to bed later and slept fitfully through the night. But this morning, I'm fine.... don't even have the usual day-after soreness around my head and neck. The mental confusion that seems to occupany my Migraines now is of more concern to me than the pain which has definitely lessened with age) or the vision problems (which I've come to accept as transitory). I've had this mental confusion before and it doesn't last long. Seems to have lasted a little longer this time - long enough for me to watch my Mom talking to me and thinking how strange to hear the words and make no sense of them... then thinking how awful if this condition were to persist. Maybe this is what it's like for stroke victims. You understand that someone is communicating with you - only you can't decipher what they're saying and can't find the right words to let them know. Now I also know all the triggers for Migraines. None of which were in evidence yesterday - except "glare". Glare bothers my eyes a lot. Glare has triggered Migraine episodes in the past - but usually because I was either sun bathing directly in the sun or up in on of those little towns in the Rocky Mountains where the glare was so bright that I could hardly see and then noticed that my eyes had gone wacky... and then the headache came. So, in hindsight, I did notice that it was extremely bright when I was driving yesterday. Whether the brightness and glare triggered the Migraine or whether the fact that the light was bothering me should have warned me that something was up, is now neither here nor there. But all these boring words were just to let you know why I didn't journal yesterday. I was also reading something about Migrainous Stroke on the Internet this morning and decided that maybe I should talk to someone. It's been years since I've done more than accept them and take medication. Research into Migraine has come a long way in the last 10 years - or so I've been told. Oh well, enough for today. Hope your day is good. Rian |
