Leah vs. Migraine

I carry fast-acting prescription migraine meds with me everywhere I go. Well, at least I did... except it's been almost a year and a half since I last had one so last time I switched purses I just didn't put it in my new one. Big mistake.

Last time I had a migraine was May 3, 2008. Ian and I were in Memphis for the weekend, and it the was the day we got engaged! It came on very suddenly... so we went back to the hotel and I slept for a few hours and we were able to go out to dinner, where he proposed!

This time, not as nice. I felt a little funny yesterday afternoon at work but wasn't sure what it was. When I was walking out of the door to go to my car and head home, I started getting little blotchy patches in my vision. I got in the car and called Ian, as I always do on the way home, and tried to pretend I didn't see them. Then, I started getting little iridescent fuzzy lines across my vision, and I knew I was in trouble. The lines started getting bigger, then all of a sudden, like it always does, I lost my peripheral vision. I was driving with my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead, and i couldn't see my left hand or my left arm. My straight ahead vision was fine, except for the blotchiness, but my peripheral field on the left side was completely gone and the right side was pretty fuzzy. I stopped at the nearest drug store and bought some excedrine migraine, but I knew it wasn't going to help much. If I'd had my medicine with me, I could've taken it right when I started seeing the fuzzy lines and it would've stopped it. I might've gotten a mild headache, but it pretty much stops it in its tracks if I can catch it soon enough. But of course, I didn't have it with me. So I took 3 of the Excedrine and drove home in tears. :(

Once I got home (around 5:00) I laid down on my air mattress in the living room (remember - I don't have furniture!), closed all the curtains, turned off all the lights, and put a pillow over my head to block out the light. I even had to put my cell phone on silent because every time I got a text message the sound was excruciating! Plus, Ian twitters like 2,683,183,860,432 times a minute so it kept going crazy. My head felt like it was going to explode... it was the first time in my life I've ever been in so much pain that it made me nauseous. The dogs were SO sweet. Even though they had been at home alone all day (and probably sleeping) they laid down with me and slept and snuggled all evening and all night. They didn't even try to play and run around like they normally do at night. They're the best...

So I laid in bed all afternoon, and all night... and 16 hours later I woke up with a headache. Nothing like yesterday, but a dull, nagging headache. I took some Aleve and it slowly faded... but I took today off work and have been snoozing and lying around all day. First of all I needed a day to relax, and secondly there was NO way I could've worked today. Even though I slept so long my body was still completely exhausted from the whole ordeal.

So basically, when I get a migraine, I literally lose my vision. I actually have blinding headaches! Next time when you have a bad headache, please don't call it a migraine. It's insulting! Unless of course you've been diagnosed and are actually having migraines. It just gets on my nerves when people are always posting on facebook that they have a migraine. If they really had one, they certainly wouldn't be looking at a bright computer screen. Bad headaches can be painful also. I get that. But not like REAL migraines!

Anyway... Tomorrow I'm headed back to work... even though I let them know when my last day is like a month and a half ago, tomorrow I give my official two week notice. Two weeks until I can finally move to Boston and Ian and I won't have to be apart anymore. All our furniture and stuff arrives at the new apartment tomorrow, so hopefully he'll have everything at least mostly set up by the time I get there. Hopefully I'll find a job quickly, but I also hope that I'll have a couple weeks off to get the apartment in order and just take a little time off. If not, that works too... but it would be nice.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks Kacie for saying that my posts are never boring :-) Love you!