Migraine
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The first thing is, you get a phantom scent: smoke, or mustiness, or toast. Then the flickering at the corners of your vision starts. There's no pain yet, but you know what's coming, and you make excuses and find yourself in a darkened room, praying that it won't be a nasty one. The pain, when it comes, is immense, immeasurable, off the chart—pressure, pulsing, crushing pain. You cancel plans. You call the infusion center at the hospital to see if they can fit you in. It's almost noon; they may not have any slots open for you. But they have an opening, thank God.
You call a cab; there's no driving when the migraine hits. You pray your cabbie is not a chatty one. The cab winds through the streets, bearing you and your pain, which seems to be its own entity, to the hospital. At the hospital, they check you in and bring you back to a darkened room. You sit in the chair, and they insert the IV using a vein finder. The nurse is a new one, and you can tell she's nervous about placing the IV. After a couple of tries, she calls a senior nurse to help her. The crushing pain entirely consumes you. The nurses hang the bags and inject the medications. The magnesium, Benedryl, Compazine, and Ketorolac flow into your veins.
You close your eyes, picture the healing medicine making its way within your body, and try to relax the muscles around your neck and face. After a few minutes, your migraine begins to decrease, and you sigh with relief. The treatment takes about forty-five minutes. Your headache had been a nine on the pain scale, and now it's about a four. Liveable. You wait for the IV bags to empty, wait for them to remove the IV, thank the nurses and call for a cab to go home.
The rest of the day is suspended, somehow, in a fog of unreality. The headache eases, and you take a shower to relax the muscles even more. You eat some protein; Mom always said protein would cure a headache. Or someone said that... you'd heard it somewhere, and it stuck with you. Your stomach is still a bit unsettled, and all you want is something sweet. You spoon peanut butter directly from the jar to your mouth. You know that screen time will reignite the migraine, so you pick up your knitting. By the time you finish three rows, the migraine has almost gone. It's five o'clock. Another day lost to the pain. You go to bed early, your new homeostasis is still tentative. You hope you'll be able to sleep.
Dear God, you pray, let me wake tomorrow without a migraine.
