I Literally Actually Can't: the Big Dumb Truth About Migraines (Part One)

The first migraine I remember happened when I was in kindergarten. I'd spent all afternoon trudging through reading Go, Dog. Go! (incidentally Go, Dog. Go! is actually the longest book in the the world) aloud to my mother, and I wanted to die. The pain was intense--I was unbelievably frustrated and wanted nothing more than to be left alone in silence, but when I was five, I had no way of articulating that. What I was able to articulate was "I don't want to read to Daddy." It was true--I didn't want to read to Daddy, but not out some desire to deprive him of father/daughter bonding time, but because I was a five year old in indescribable pain with no way to convince anyone that it existed. Kids don't get headaches, especially not migraines. Those are for adults with jobs and stress and shit. So I sat on the floor by my father and suffered through every last word of Go, Dog. Go!, ruining both my previous love of that literary classic and my will to read altogether. If reading was going to hurt like this, the written word could fuck off.

I was aware there was a problem, but it was exceptionally hard to explain. I didn't have more specific words than "my head hurts," and in general, no one believes kids. Teachers and nurses didn't believe me. I spent more and more time in the nurse's office with a cold pack on my head, and was only allowed to stay for ten minutes at a time, tops. The school couldn't give me medicine without a letter from my parents, and Tylenol did nothing anyway. They would put down a paper towel and make me stay on the cot. They could do nothing. I could do nothing. The paper towel could do nothing.

As I got a little older, the headaches got worse, and included more symptoms of migraine. I would be destroyed by nausea when I had a headache, which would leave me fearing that I had some sort of stomach virus. When I would throw up, I would break all the blood vessels in my face. Usually this meant I would be kept out of school the next day, because we still didn't know that it wasn't contagious. When it was suggested that I might be getting migraines, doctors and teachers and people that thought they new better told us "Kids don't get migraines!" again and again. At some point in second grade, my pediatrician mentioned something about migraines, but without a solid diagnosis, I was still shit outta luck. For years, the routine would be this:

Step one: Notice Pain

Were you working on that ditto? Not anymore, asshole.

Step Two: Ignore Pain

You can tough it out. You can tough it out. You can tough it out. You're strong. You're determined. It'll stop hurting if you don't think about it.

Step Three: Seek Help

You weakling.  Hmm. Well, actually, you don't look so good. What's wrong with your eyes? Your cheeks are bright red. You know what, go to the nurse.

Step Four: The Cot

You're going to spend a lot of time on this cot. You're going to get to know the ceiling above this cot very well. You're going to start seeing waves of color pass in front of your eyes while the nurses listen to light FM.   In high school you will finally be given the code words to medication and freedom: "Call My Mother."

Step Five: Vomit

You have reached the point where the pain is so unbearable, your eyes no longer want to open and waves of nausea beat you until you are nothing more than a loosely-tied garbage bag filled with 300 pounds of puke. You have not taken any medication, because you are at school and even one little advil would break the school's drug policy.  The only place to go from here is up?

Step Six: Sleep it Off

Yeah, you tried. I'm sorry. Just shut the lights off and try to sleep. Fuck man, just...let me know if you need anything.

This catches you up to about...2005. This was before I got diagnosed with chronic migraine and started getting actual treatment for it. This was before I was allowed to carry advil in my purse without risking getting suspended from school. Stay tuned for part two, which is likely going to be just one big love letter to ibuprofen. For now, I'm going to sleep. I've got a headache.