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Along with my sense of humour, love of reading, a handful of my musical preferences and a suite of physical traits, one very significant thing I inherited from my father was a predilection for migraine headaches at the wrong times. (Note: Any time is the wrong time for a migraine.)听
It鈥檚 gotten to the point where I can plot out these episodes into a familiar sequence of events in distinct, predictable succession, and I feel this is the case especially because I just went through the gauntlet of these stages recently.
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Stage One: Sunspots
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The onset of a migraine always creeps up on me unexpectedly. It starts off with a hint of 鈥渓ight鈥� at the peripheries of my vision. What usually happens is that I only notice it beginning when I start to have trouble reading. 听
Given the surfeit of time I spend in front of a screen, almost every time it happens, I鈥檓 in front of a screen. Slowly the edges of letters become hazy, my peripherals begin to blur, and then the dreaded sunspots appear.听
My relatives who also suffer migraines describe it as 鈥渁ura.鈥澨�
I describe it as 鈥溾�tupid and annoying. Not this crap again!鈥� and compare it to looking at the sun too long. When the bluish disturbances appear, that鈥檚 the harbinger of the pain to come. At this point, I begin to prepare to be unproductive for at least the next few hours. Luckily, this has only started on me, once, when I was at work. This stage entails absolutely no pain鈥攋ust frustration that I can鈥檛 see anything.
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Stage Two: Pressure
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The 鈥渟unspots鈥� are accompanied by insistent pressure in my skull. This is the last warning my head gives me that life is about to suck for a while. By the time the pressure kicks in, most of my vision is muddled with a profusion of hazy blue. Reading is basically impossible, and it鈥檚 difficult to discern faces. I can see my surroundings鈥攋ust not well.
I learned once, while navigating the transit system of Edmonton back to my apartment, in a snowstorm, that this is not the best state for travelling.
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Stage Three: 鈥淢y eyes!鈥�
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When I reach this stage, the vision disturbances abate, but lo and behold, they鈥檙e supplanted by a growing, inexorable pain that I wouldn鈥檛 wish on my worst enemy. This is the stage where the formidable legend of the migraine live up to its odious reputation, and I am thankful to myself that I have stepped away from a screen.
This stage is accompanied by me swearing a blue streak鈥攁 streak that鈥檚 not at all dissimilar to the blue streaks that plague my vision up to that point鈥攁nd eventually trying to 鈥渃ompensate鈥� for the miserable state I descend into by guzzling water and massaging my face and head with a vice-grip. Late in this stage, much of the pain migrates to my eye sockets and brow.
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Stage Four: Nausea
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Once the headache-portion has reached its peak, the discontent spreads into my gut, which begins to churn and twist uncomfortably. I promptly stop chugging water and begin to contemplate what I鈥檇 been eating or drinking that 鈥渢riggered鈥� the migraine. I swear off any number of things, including late nights early mornings, any and every type of alcohol I consumed in the weeks prior, coffee, tea, tannin-rich foods, high salt, high sugar foods, and anything else WebMD suggests might predispose a person to these horrific paroxysms.听
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Stage Five: 鈥淗ell with it.鈥�
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After all attempts to abate the pounding in my head and tsunami in my gut have proven ineffectual, I dismiss anything and everything I have to do for the rest of the day, hope I have time to do it later, and retreat to my bed or recliner to pass out for far longer than anyone ought to ever take a nap. I drift off to the soothing classical sounds of Chopin, Bach Debussy and Satie, making up my quintessential 鈥淢y head is about to explode鈥�-playlist. 听
The one silver lining of occasionally suffering migraines is that they really give you an appreciation for how great life is when you don鈥檛 have a migraine, and are able to read, see clearly and really, do anything properly.
