When Life Is Too Much.

Today I wanted to leave my life, leave my body and take a vacation in the life and body of someone who doesn't have chronic health issues. I call these people "normal".

Normal life is waking up in the morning and hesitating to get out of bed because it is cozy or hitting the alarm to snooze another 10 minutes because you are just not a morning person.

Normal life is planning your meals around activities - work, classes, kid pick-up, work-outs or other extracurriculars.

My day starts with me drifting into consciousness and taking a full evaluation of my body. Where does my headache rate on a scale of 1-10? Can I open my eyes without pain piercing through my skull? Can I see straight, or am I seeing double? When I sit up, am I nauseous, does my head spin? The 30 steps to the bathroom and exposure to sunlight determine if I will be working towards being a functioning human, or if I crawl back into bed in my dark cave of a room and try to block out the world until the pain and aura stop. Next is the assessment of what treatment would be most beneficial - and how accessible is that treatment. The icepack in the freezer downstairs requires traversing a slippery flight of stairs and exposure to direct sunlight - not a go on bad days. A washcloth wet with cold water will have to suffice. solid food of some kind is kept within reach of my bed for the use to mitigate nausea and the need for solid food before pain medication. My head zapping electrodes also within easy reach for the days when nothing else works and the pain needs to be redirected.

I eat because my body needs solid food to keep functioning - and so that the nausea caused by my migraine medication doesn't cause me to throw it back up and thereby lose the effectiveness of the drugs. There are days when I live on fruit loops and kraft dinner mac and cheese, because that is all I can stand the smell of. Veggie straws can sometimes make the cut, if I'm not too scent sensitive. I struggle every time with the decision - do I force down food in order to take the highly addictive medication to get a few hours of relief from the pain (if the meds even work this time), or do I tough it out with aroma therapy and my head zapping electrode?

I hesitate to make plans because more often than not I have to cancel. I tried for years to push through and try to have a good time, and ignore my symptoms. There can be moments that are worth leaving my dark cave, but majority of the time, being in a social setting with a migraine is torture. The light, scents, requirement to interact with others and be coherent - all are too much and increase the misery. I have missed many family get-togethers, and events with friends because I could not bear the stimuli and decided to keep my misery to myself.

Today I wanted to leave my body, leave my life and be someone else. Someone who doesn't live through the experience of migraines 75-80% of my life. I was hung over from a 5-day migraine, and had an appointment with my family doctor, who has been with me since I started experienceing migraines 20+ years ago. The only suggestion she could make is that we add another medication to the handful of pills I already take everyday to try and help with the residual pain that could be caused by tension. That is all I have left - I have tried everything else modern medicine has to offer. "Hopeless" is the term that floats in my mind. If I only had a solid reason to hope that tomorrow could be a better day...