When plagued by a migraine, memory’s your saviour. People talk about God; about their saviour. Your saviour is memory. You may be dazed, dizzied, and half-blind - but you have your memory. You know as you stumble down the hallway, desperate for pain relief, that it’s 13 steps. There’s a bookshelf on the left - 5 steps from my bedroom. A doorway 3 steps after that – on the right. And so you stumble, from support to hazy support, towards the medicine cupboard. Lights flash. Lights clear. You lurch onwards.
When a migraine clears, the ordeal’s not over. You’re free of the lights; the dizzied consciousness and confused balance. Free of the haze though? I think not! You’re tired of light, and you can’t think. You go to sleep for eleven hours straight - quite a feat for an insomniac. You wake up, and it’s over. The whole damn thing’s over. But you’re not happy, because you know another one’s coming. If not now, then soon. In a week – a month if you’re lucky. You dread it. You fear it. You wait.
