Ug...

I'm having a sleep deprived EEG today - which means I've had no sleep, but I finished two novels and watched several old movies on HBO last night while not-sleeping. I still love Harrison Ford.

Since my brain is on borrowed time I dare not attempt to be witty, clever, or informative. I'm going instead for pure sympathy. I don't want to do this. I've been dealing with migraine headaches for over a decade now and I've had every diagnostic test offered until I almost glow in the dark, tried every new medication, kept the food diary, listened to idiots tell me I was imagining it, the exercise/sleep diary, didn't eat bacon or red wine, done meditation and yoga, and on and on and on… I watch my intake of narcotics because I don’t’ want my liver to start its own blog. I’ve been through the guilt when my daughter started having them while she was at university – yes they tend to run in families, and yes it felt like it was my fault.

All in all it’s a bitch of a… what? It’s not a disease. It’s not a broken bone, a tumor, an infection. When you tell someone you can’t make it to the appointment, dinner, party, meeting… because you have a headache you can feel the eyebrows going up. It’s a lonely malady because of that. It’s devastating pain but you’re not dying. It’s debilitating but you’re not “sick”. I lied for years, came up with any excuse I could think of other than “headache”. Thank the gods I have the most understanding child in the universe but other than that I cut myself off from society and friends for a very long time.

In the past few years there has been more written about these headaches and more people have come forward who suffer from them. Did you know that much of Alice in Wonderland was in part written from hallucinations during the auras of Carroll’s migraines? I can’t say that I’ve found any great creative material in my particular angst. Pretty much it’s just pain and throwing up my dinner. But I am trying to do my part in getting us migraine sufferers out of the closet.

Telling the truth about the migraines really started when I was in Morocco and began my blog. Because all of you are out “there” I felt free to tell the truth. On days when I couldn’t write I posted that I had a migraine and the response has always been positive and supportive, reinforcing my belief that only the loveliest of people read my blog.

I’m taking this test today because I love my husband. --because my husband is a doctor and just can’t accept that there is nothing to be done but take the pain medications and march through it. -because he’s only had me back for two years and he can’t believe that I have to suffer and he has to watch helplessly. – because I am the eternal optimist and just maybe this doctor, this test… will show something new, something that can be attacked with medication or therapy. But most of all I’m doing it for him. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to be upset with someone who is trying to make you better because he loves you.

After the test I will be sleeping! But then we will be celebrating, as today is a special day in that it is the 18th birthday of my stepdaughter who is a special young woman indeed.

I shall try for witty anon eh? Oh by the by, I’m having an article over at Powder Room Graffiti tomorrow so head over that way please and comment. Since they give me money I like them to think that you all rush right over there when I write something brilliant.

Ciao