Sep

29

Fortune Cookie Say…..

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Like so much information that is available about migraines news comes in a sort of hazy and hardly lucid format.  Doctors notice some things that in their small world are little more than interesting.  For example they “note” that women suffer with migraines more than men and that women are prone to them during hormonal cycles.  Men who suffer with chronic migraines typically link it to lack of water or over exertion.  I asked a Doctor recently what he thought could account for the difference.  He calmy said “Well, women have morehormonal changes then men.”  Incredibly insightful I thought (sarcasm here).  Then it occured to me that perhaps it is Doctors that are writing the fortunes slipped into our cookies at the local Chinese restaurants.  Their wisdom and knowledge while occasionally may hit the mark are more often as flimsy as a slip of paper in a flavorless cookie.

If I wrote a fortune cookie it would say “People who really care, never get paid to care.”  Don’t trust someone who bought their mansion thanks to your suffering. Your pain is making their mortgage payments.

Sep

21

The Migraine that Never Was

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When faced with chronic pain it is easy to fall prey to depression and a sense of enormous loss.  The feeling of being powerless can be as debilitating as the pain itself.  Migraines are painful no doubt, but it is often this overwhelming feeling of being powerless that hurts worse then the actual headaches.  The threat of migraines can soak up weeks of your life even when you have not actually had a migraine.  I recently spent three weeks in a constant state of anxiety and watchfulness awaiting the terrible migraine I expected to come.  It did not come. 

 

It occurred to me after two weeks had passed that I had not gone out of the house alone with the kids or felt a moment of peace in that whole period.  I had been living like I was very ill, yet had been actually feeling pretty good.  What a waste!  I was furious with myself and then began believing that since it had been two weeks of no migraines I should not get hopeful that the pain free spell would continue and then proceeded to spend one more week waiting for the migraine that wold not be. 

 

Finally I stopped this destructive cycle of thinking and ‘got a grip’.  I stopped looking for signs of a migraines imminent on-slot and began looking for ways to make everyday of feeling good, great.  There is a lesson, I think, in this for everyone.  That we should be in anticipation of bad leaves us never seeing the good.  Even when things are terrible there are still opportunities to laugh and smile so why not enjoy all the more every moment that you feel good. 

 

My new effort in life is not embrace just a good day, but every good moment.  Come what may, meet my every moment with positivity and possibility.  It is a carpe diem way of life, and I need very much to find a new slant of light to live in.