Loneliness

Today, 11:00 am nearly on the dot.  Migraine.  Aura started, as always, as a slight blur near the center of my visual field, akin to the distortion you might see if a small rock dinged your windshield.  Was working with a co-worker in New Jersey to troubleshoot an issue, discussing in IRC.  Gulped down an Imitrex, after the usual struggle to get the damn thing out of the package (the person who designed this package has clearly never had a migraine).  Posted a couple of notes in IRC about what was going on, turned off lights, folded up the small blanket I keep in my office for the summer refrigeration (er, air conditioning) season, and put my head down.  In a half hour, I was downstairs ordering lunch and feeling, not well exactly, but over the most debilitating symptom, the migraine aura.  And in another hour after that, I was able to function almost normally, provided I kept the lighting low and closed my door against ambient noise.

Those are the facts.  They are remarkably similar to the other 19 migraines I’ve had since their re-onset in November.  What I want to talk about today is how I felt, not physically but emotionally.

As I sat with my head on my desk, a wave of loneliness and despair broke over me.  Despair, because I have thus far failed to identify a trigger.  I gave up red wine for 6 weeks, and still had migraines.  I gave up artificial sweeteners for a month, and still had migraines.  I seldom eat nitrate-cured meats; my consumption of aged cheeses is small; and I avoid MSG like leprosy.  I am still getting three migraines a month.  There seems to be some small connection between skipping meals and poor sleep, but it’s a tenuous connection - I ate and slept fine yesterday.  The magnesium and riboflavin supplements seem to have done no good.  The MRI and the CT scan revealed nothing.  I have a followup appointment in two weeks, and I plan to ask for a referral to a neurologist.  But I am not hopeful.  There just doesn’t seem to be any universally effective treatment for this condition.

One aspect of this hopelessness is my utter bafflement of why?  Why after 19 years did my migraines reappear out of the blue?  My doctor seems uninterested in this question, beyond using the imaging tests to confirm that there are no brain lesions or tumors, but to me this is the most interesting and relevant question.  Because if I knew the cause, perhaps I could do something about it.  Or maybe I mean if I knew what made them go way 19 years ago, I could, you know, make them go away again.

As for the loneliness, well - imagine yourself in an office and suddenly you cannot see well enough to use your computer or read any papers.  You are in the middle of a conversation (in person, telephone, or virtual) and have to cut it short abruptly.  All you can bear to do is screen out as many stimuli as possible and tough it out while you wait for the medication to kick in, and the medication has never, ever gotten rid of the aura any faster than the aura would go away by itself.  In the meantime, you feel frankly rotten and want someone to feel sorry for you.  But who will feel sorry for you?  The world of work goes on, as the world of work always does.  Maybe the person you were talking to when the headache comes on feels some slight sympathy.  Maybe somebody will pass by your office, see through the window that your light is off and your head is down, and will express some concern.  But maybe they will just think you are shirking.  Plus, because you have three of these things a month, mercifully not ALL during business hours, you figure that the folks who know about your migraines are sick of hearing about it.  On top of everything else, you are thinking of the extremely important meetings you have today, plus all the personal odds and ends you hoped to accomplish in between, and how much you just want to go home, if you could somehow get home without going into the bright sunshine first.

At the moment you feel as sick as you think anyone with a terminal illness could possibly feel (though you recognize that just yesterday you felt fine and tomorrow you’ll probably feel fine again and if not tomorrow then certainly the day after, and later, when the meds kick in, you will think it’s possible that you were exaggerating a teensy bit), and you’re all alone and it would be completely inappropriate to ask for attention from the people around you.  So you wait for the Imitrex to kick in and you wonder if the vending machine has any ginger ale for the nausea, and eventually you ping your spouse, who can’t help you either, but at least he’s your spouse and made that in-sickness-and-in-health vow and therefore has some responsibility to listen.  Because, oh baby, is this sickness or what!