I slept. Really slept. Opening my eyes, I realized I was deeply in the bed, not lying on top of it, rigid, as I had been for the past nine nights and mornings. I awoke with hope, not sorrow, gratitude, not resentment. My golden, Ollie, was nestled up against me, and I enjoyed a few minutes of quality time, just petting him and truly resting. I didn’t dread getting up to start the day.

The migraine attack had lifted. Ironically, after 46 years of living with these and writing an entire book about this disease being “so much more than a headache,” I had not realized that the migraine I had been living with over the last nine days explained so much of what I had been experiencing—overwhelming exhaustion, numbness in my eyes and forehead, a general feeling of being unwell, intense anxiety (beginning right away in the mornings and only getting worse through the day), irritability, jaw-clenching that had me biting the insides of my cheeks again. All of these symptoms, in addition to the severe neck pain on the right side in that one deep muscle along the occipital nerve, were a migraine attack—just not full-blown in a typical way.

This morning, despite the rain and wind, I looked forward to going on my walk with Ollie. Walking up the trail in the woods, I realized I was breathing. That may sound ludicrous, but often, lately, I’ve found my breathing is either halting or so shallow that I cannot take a deep breath.

I could feel, hear, and fully experience the sounds of the geese and stopped for a long look at four deer staring back at me. The appreciation for those sights and sounds had also been missing these last days. We’ve had unusually warm winter weather with sunshine, and while I could intellectually know how gorgeous it was, I couldn’t really feel it.

Then, on the way back down the trail, “it” hit me. Utter panic, tears welling, that fear of turning my head the wrong way and bringing all the pain right back as we went step by step down the steep decline. For the rest of the walk, rather than basking in how good I felt, I found myself thinking about all the triggers, all I would need to avoid, but all I wanted to do at the same time.

I had written an earlier article about “Cephalalgiaphobia, the fear of having a headache attack during a pain-free period that may induce patients to use analgesic in the absence of pain to prevent headache and to improve their performance” (National Library of Medicine). However, now I realize that despite my “knowing” about this fear, it came upon me seemingly from out of nowhere.

Educating ourselves about our illness is so important, but sometimes the visceral pain and then relief, followed by the fear, are so entrenched that we don’t see that fear coming. At least, I didn’t this time. Maybe next time, I can gradually understand that while it’s there, I can and should stay in the present moment, enjoy the time I’m free from pain and angst, and just live.

References

Giannini G, Zanigni S, Grimaldi D, Melotti R, Pierangeli G, Cortelli P, Cevoli S. Cephalalgiaphobia as a feature of high-frequency migraine: a pilot study. J Headache Pain. 2013 Jun 10;14(1):49. doi: 10.1186/1129-2377-14-49. PMID: 23759110; PMCID: PMC3686604.