A couple of years ago I’d gone to the minor med for what I thought was a sinus infection. They asked me if I had migraines, but treated me with some nasal spray that seemed to work in the sense I was no longer in so much pain that ripping my eyeballs out with a garden hoe was preferable to the way I felt. BUT WAIT. There’s more.  The plot thickens.

A few days before Christmas I had a thing. I’d had a headache, but not a terrible one. I got up from doing something at my desk and saw this thing in front of my eye. It was as if I had something on my contacts. But I didn’t have my contacts on and the thing I saw was moving. Pulsing. It looked a little like this. I’m too lazy to make a gif out of it, so imagine it’s pulsing and radiating, okay? For me?

By the way? That center image is based on a kicky little ikat print from Dwell Studio. They didn’t pay me to say that, but I saw this fabric the other day and wall all CUTE! And then I was all HEY! That’s my hallucination!

Nice fabric waits for no headache.

So I go to the minor med. They check me for strep because, well, that’s what they do. They checked my blood sugar. The doctor says sometimes sinus problem will cause the thumbprint. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the thumbprint. That weird thing was smudged in the middle like when you leave a fingerprint on glass. Then she says it could be an ocular migraine. Do I have migraines? Then, in my head? I heard this sound like they always make in movies when someone’s trying to crack a safe and all the tumblers line up and Charlize Theron is happy because it means her daddy loves her and she can marry Marky Mark. Or something.

Now, it’s at this point I should tell you I went to The Googles. I KNOW! SHUT UP! But I thought at first I was having a stroke. And I couldn’t get Chuck and I was trying not to panic. And, of course, not wanting to panic, I went to some site which told me OMIGAWD!! DETACHED RETINA! CORTICAL SPREADING DEPRESSION! SCINTILLATING SCOTOMA! I don’t know what that is, but if I’m going to have a Dreaded Disease, at least it’s scintillating, right?

So all this to say I’m going to the doctor soon and I based on my years experience in Googling medical conditions, I believe I have ocular migraines. And the point of all this is to say to those of you with migraines–not just bad headaches, but migraines– I AM SO SORRY.

Because if I’ve got this migraine business, I’m not getting them too often and they seem to be reasonably manageable. For those of you who don’t have the luxury of good drugs or infrequent bouts, I do not know how you do this. And it really peels my tomatoes that the options seem to be hurt more, hurt less, or go into a chemical coma.

And people who say they have migraines when they just have bad headaches or want to be dramatic, allow me to bitch slap them for you. As many times as you’d like.

Tags: crazypants, garden hoe, ranting