Taken prisoner… Send painkillers…

This morning I awoke to the mother of all migraines.   She looked like this:

Meg Mucklebones from Ridley Scott’s Legend

The 1 inch of sunlight from beneath the blind – that tiny amount of light – was akin to having good ol’ Meg use her lovely fingernails to gouge out my baby blues.   I popped as many pills as I could * and crawled down the stairs, clutching a set of earplugs.

Why, one might ask, would I need earplugs when Rissa is away with her grandparents for the week and David works in near silence at his computer all day?  Because our roof is being re-roofed this week and there are 5 men on it, with stompy steel-toed construction boots and generator-powered air-nail guns.  Don’t get me wrong, I love these guys, they’re doing a freaking amazing job at putting what must be (given the cost of the project) gold-encrusted shingles onto my roof and they seem genuinely thrilled when I bring them lavender lemonade (which if you haven’t tried, you have to) and key lime squares, but when the pain in your eye sockets makes you puke – construction noise doesn’t help.

I staggered to the couch in the family room, pulled the blanket over my head and told David to wake me up in an hour and a half so that I could get ready to go to work.  At 9:00 a.m. when he woke me, I was  insensible from the drugs and speaking in tongues…  or so he says.    He brought me a sleeping mask and called into work for me to let my boss know that I wouldn’t be in until the afternoon.

My Mom always knew when I was really sick – by how much I would sleep.  There were many a day when I would get to the end of the sidwalk on my way to school, clutch my abdomen and inform my mother that my spleen had to be removed, but when I was really sick?  I just slept.  Like the dead.  All pale and clammy and barely breathing.

This morning was one of those sleeps.  I was out for HOURS.  And when I finally awoke from the sleep coma, I was delighted to find one of the cats snuggled protectively into the curve of my body and daylight had ceased to make me want to hurl.  The worst was over – but I had the residual raven’s claws around my eyeballs – just holding on, you know, to remind me that at any moment it could sever my optic nerves for fun.  Like say, if I caught the gleam of a piece of cutlery bathed in sunlight in the sink at the wrong angle – it’d be all over.  There are times when I have to wear sunglasses in the house or at even at night to stop the glare of headlights from… wait a second!  I can’t believe that I didn’t realize this before!  Corey Hart must suffer from migraines!   Just like me!  Just like JK Rowling!  Poor bugger was suffering from the pain of migraines and nobody knew because he was hiding it in his lyrics all poetical-like.  I feel so much closer to him now. 

*Yes, I am a pill-popper.  But I’m not a moron about it.  I’m not downing 6 extra strength Tylenol with 4 Avil migraine gel caps.  I take the absolute top limit of what won’t a) erode my stomach lining b) destroy my liver c) put me into the hospital for a drug overdose.  Don’t be stupid folks – take the recommended dosages – your liver will thank you for it.