For anyone who thinks a migraine is ‘just a headache’.

November 24th, 2010 |Published in Uncategorized | Link to this Post| 5 replies

It starts like this.

I’m sat on a train between Rotherham and Sheffield, it’s almost five o’clock and I have been up since 5am to get up there, do a days work without a break and leave at 4.30 to get home at a decent time.  I’m super cold and feeling a little strange, but I write it off as tiredness. 

I have this exact thought; “a migraine would be the worst thing in the world right now…”,

A couple of seconds after this thought, I notice that I can’t read the second half of the word ‘thinsulate’ which is written on my gloves.  I close my eyes, if I close my eyes, rest them for a minute, maybe this won’t be happening, maybe I can make it stop.  I open my eyes, I look at my glove, if I move my eyes along the word I can make it all out.  There.  I’m fine.  Except when I look at it straight on the second half appears to be swimming. 

So, there’s no denying it, and I start to panic, because I know what happens next and I have to change trains at Sheffield, I have to sit on a train for another two hours, I have to get off the train at St Pancras and get on the underground system to get home.  I suddenly feel hot, really, really hot.

I get off the train at Sheffield.  By this point if you were to draw a line straight down the centre of my vision, I can’t see anything to the right of that line.  A woman appears out of nowhere in front of me, like magic, I feel overwhelmingly sick, I can’t read the boards so I don’t know which train goes to London.  I walk up the stairs to the concourse that bridges all the platforms, holding on to the handrail for dear life.  I wait at the top for a platform announcement and when it comes I walk along the bridge, I can’t ask anyone which platform is number 5 because I’m not sure which words I’ve lost and the slurring makes me sound drunk.

I count the exits from the bridge and when I count to 5 I walk down to the platform (this is more luck than anything else, there are usually two platforms for every exit).  The train is waiting and I call John, the sound of his voice is so reassuring that I start to cry, I manage to say I have a migraine and my phone is dying, but I can’t be sure I’ll be able to figure out the underground system when I get to London.  He tells me that he’ll come and get me, he asks which area of St Pancras the train will get into and I can’t remember the word ‘escalator’, it’s gone, all I can say is “it’s up, up”, he says he’ll find me, he’ll be there, I’m not to worry.

My vision clears, this gives me about five minutes to get onto the train.  There’s a space, like being in the eye of the storm, of perfect calm, I feel completely fine, clear headed and alert.  I not only get onto the train, but I find the right carriage, and the seat I have reserved.  I put my bags on the overhead shelf, put my coat over my head and wait.

When the pain hits, it hits the right hand side of my head (sometimes left, but this time right), and it feels like someone smashes into my brain with a hammer, and they keep on smashing, over and over and over.  I screw my eyes up to shield myself a little from the blows but no matter how I sit, hold my head, no matter how still I try to keep, they keep on coming.  At some point I pass out because when I come to we seem to have covered some distance.  I push the urge to vomit as far to the back of my mind as I can.

The train pulls up at St Pancras, and after two hours of sitting in the same position so I disturb my head as little as possible, I have to get up.  So I do, and I walk off the train and down the platform with small shuffles, like a novice ice skater.  I see John, he’s got a taxi waiting outside and he pulls me close to him and helps me get to it.  He takes me home and puts me to bed.  The dark space, the comfortable bed, all make the pain more bearable.  He makes me some piping hot soup, I read somewhere that that is meant to help.  Then I sleep, for 11 hours.

The next morning the crushing pain is gone, I feel weak, shakey, and my brain feels bruised, delicate.  I spend the morning on the sofa, as my body demands, stearing clear of reading, or computer screens.  I go for a short walk in the afternoon, fresh air to clear the fog.  I spend an hour or so cooking things which require lots of slow stirring to focus my thoughts, and to keep me away from anything tv shaped.

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