A New Experience I Could Have Done Without

I’ve always been headache-prone. Stress, a stuffy nose, an empty stomach, songs sung out of key, you name it and it gives me a headache. But I’ve always felt lucky that I did not have to endure migraines like my mom used to have.

I know I’ve been lucky because when I was growing up, the word Migraine was the Word of Doom. Dad, normally happy to have kids around and tolerant when they acted like the beastly animals that they are, would turn into the most fiercely protective Guardian of the Quiet when Mom’s Migraine struck, and the house would become deathly still. If, for some (now I’m sure totally not) good reason, you had to creep into Mom’s room to ask her a question, her low, raspy whispering Migraine Voice reply would make you feel like the worst kid ever for interrupting her, and vow never to do it again. This is hindsight, of course. You know in reality that guilty feeling lasted all the way until you turned around to tell your sister, “Told you so!” in your shriekiest voice.

I’ve been lucky up until last night. Yesterday, my stomach was inexplicably nauseated. My lunch tasted….tasteless. The sun came out momentarily and blinded me. I skipped dinner. Then I woke up at 2:00 a.m. with an ice cream headache that would not go away. You know the kind that makes you make that screamy ice cream headache noise? I was making that noise, hoping that it might work like some magic incantation that would make the pain go away. Didn’t work. Ibuprofen didn’t touch it. Twice. I finally dug deep into my drawer and found one old Codeine pill that I had squirreled away from the time I hurt my back – thank God. Otherwise, I would have hurled myself, well, I don’t know. Probably, I would have just hurled.

I finally drift off to Codeine land, and this is where it gets weird. Drew gets up and gets ready for work. He comes in to say good bye, and I open my mouth to speak and my mom’s Migraine Voice comes out. Well, it’s come full circle, hasn’t it? It’s my turn. The only thing I can still consider myself lucky about is that I no longer have thoughtless children such as myself at home, trying (kind of) to be quiet.