I woke early on Monday. The combination of the early morning call to prayer and my jet lag has not been pretty. I know that I will be able to sleep through the call to prayer when I've adjusted, but that time has not yet arrived. I settled in on my "window seat" with a book and my tea and watched the sun come up.
When Craig left for work, I had a busy day planned for myself in the apartment. I started laundry - a chore that takes a disproportionate amount of my time here due to the small machine and lack of a functioning dryer. I planned to write my blog and do some other things, but I felt like everything was strangely challenging.
I thought that I was still struggling with the jet lag. I alternated between thinking that I was tired and believing that I was starving. I had a headache that prevented me from reading or writing. I put this down to the combination of jet lag and possible dehydration. I drank more water and made tea, but I should have known better.
It wasn't until after lunch and a swim that I finally gave in to the idea that a nap might help. I hate taking naps before I'm fully adjusted to the time because it seems to do more harm than good. I tried the window seat but couldn't get comfortable. I curled up on one of the beds in our guest room, but didn't like that either. I finally went into our bedroom, closed the black out curtains, and crawled into bed with my tshirt over my eyes. Only in that moment, having gotten myself into complete darkness and near silence, did I realize that my problem was not jet lag, but a migraine.
It's hard to explain (and honestly, somewhat had to comprehend myself), the lengths of self-delusion that I will go to when I have a migraine, particularly when I am alone. In the presence of anyone else, or even with a commitment to go and meet someone, I will know that I am fighting a migraine.
But alone, I can engage in a series of things that mitigate the pain and complications just enough that I can convince myself it is not a migraine but something else. I will position myself in such a way to avoid the most direct light. I will avoid turning on lights out of sheer "laziness" and because there is plenty of light for me to see what I'm doing. I will stay motionless to avoid the dizziness and help mitigate the nausea. I'll decide that any neck pain I'm having comes from the uncomfortable place I've chosen to sit for so long. I'll avoid anything that requires concentration for any reason I can think of. Without even the mundane sounds of another person to upset me, I won't notice how quiet I am taking care to be.
At best, this means that I lose an entire day to the migraine instead of terminating it with my rescue meds. But my rescue meds put me out for the day anyway. No, the real problem is that my rescue meds don't work as well if I let the migraine set in before I take them.
So after spending Monday in a migraine haze, taking my rescue medicine after dinner and spending the evening and night in a medicine induced near-coma, I woke up in a post-migraine daze on Tuesday just to have the migraine come roaring back. Another pill and another day lost. It's almost evening on Wednesday and I'm only just recovering from the migraine hangover that follows most of my migraines.
I really should know better.
No comments:
Post a Comment