My Migraine - An Altered State

Our textbook tells us that a migraine headache is a severe headache, which frequently occurs over one side of the head only. This was partly true for me, because the migraine I had only occurred once in my lifetime and it was something that I never want to experience again. As a result of this migraine headache my life has been altered forever.

One beautiful morning, October 1, 1989 to be exact, I went to work felling absolutely wonderful. About an hour later, I experienced a terrible headache, so powerful that I was totally helpless. Someone gave me smelling salts to keep from fainting. The migraine was unbearable. I never had the sensory hallucinations our book is referring to, but I do remember feeling the dislocations of perception of time and space. It was such an odd and helpless feeling.

That evening, I felt so weak that I went straight to bed. I became deathly ill and lost the entire use of the left side of my body. My arm and leg went totally limp. It was like I had no bones there at all. When Lewis Carroll wrote, “What a curious felling…Goodbye, feet!” my only comment is “ditto!” It was such a very odd and frightening feeling.