Not much to report – 33 days of Endure-All, no migraines. (In fact, my last migraine was June 4, a couple of days before I started the Endure-All.) I am still finding that hot, humid days are even more draining than they used to be. This is surely because low blood pressure is generally worse in hot weather, and Endure-All has been slightly lowering my already low blood pressure. And I am having extremely vivid dreams, which I kind of enjoy, unless it’s a disturbing dream, which have so far been rare.
Today I was rather out of sorts because it was very humid and rather hot, and I was thinking that I sort of missed my migraines. Not the pain, surely, not the aura, not the nausea, and not the aftermath where bending over causes my head to hurt. And I don’t miss the lost days or the bad moods, either. But I do kind of miss getting a sick day every month or so – my migraines are over in a matter of hours, and then I spend the rest of the day in bed, resting and reading - and I kind of miss the sympathy.
There, I said it.
I just finished reading Robertson Davies’ fine last novel, The Cunning Man. It is about a doctor, Jonathan Hullah, with some unusual approaches to treatment, approaches that are not quite psychoanalytic but share something in common with psychoanalysis – the notion that an illness might fill a need for a patient. It’s not his best novel, but I still recommend it for people facing chronic illness and wishing for a doctor who really listens. I kept wishing for my own Dr. Hullah. Instead, I’m being treated by a patchwork of specialists, including a shrink I’ve been seeing for much longer than I’ve been having migraines. I wish they could all get in a room together and talk for an hour or two – maybe then they’d figure out what’s up in my head, literally and figuratively.
The Cunning Man also reminds me of something someone said (was it Freud? it sounds like the sort of thing Freud would’ve said) about needing to know what role an illness fills for a patient – the notion being that illness, in its stealthy, twisted way, accomplishes something for a patient that the patient hasn’t learned to achieve in a more constructive way. I’ve thought about this a lot, long before my migraines came back, because it seems true to me, and yet I don’t think it means simply that our illnesses are All In Our Heads. (Well, OK, unless maybe it’s an illness of the head, like migraine. (Ha ha, I’m so clever.)) But, given that the brain is not merely a physical organ, but the physical organ that both generates thought and in a large measure controls the other organs, it stands to reason that what goes on in our minds and what goes on in our bodies and brains is this one big feedback loop. Research has shown how mental stress affects our bodies, and how our belief in a treatment can cause us to get better even if the treatment has no active ingredient (the placebo effect). Why is it so strange to think that we can become ill because of what’s going on in our minds, or that our minds can adapt our illnesses to suit our needs?
I know it was that way for my mother – her many illnesses were how she got love and support from her family. I don’t want migraine to be that for me, and after years of therapy I believe I am self-aware enough to get the things I need in a straightforward, positive way without resorting to guilt trips and manipulation. Truly I’m glad to be rid of the pain, for however long it lasts. And yet it was easy to get used to the extra sick days, the concern of my husband, and the sympathetic ear of friends and coworkers. And so I think today I have more sympathy for my mother than I’ve had in many years. I wonder how her life, and mine, would’ve been different if she’d been able to see a therapist. Would she have been any less sick physically? I don’t want to touch that question. Would her life have been better, whether or not her physical condition improved? I think it would have.
Migraine aura picture from 
