September 2009
17 posts
The Migraine Diary has stopped updating live, but you can still read from the start.
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I found Debbie’s personal file. I’m sure it was against policy to look at it but no one else was going to tell me anything. The file was huge and bloated, so wide I could barely fit my hand around it. It was packed with mental health reports detailing the break down of her marriage after she found out that her husband was a paedophile who’d been assaulting a neighbour’s...
No attacks.
No attacks.
No attacks. Ate stuffed mushrooms and pasta. Drank a cup of hot chocolate.
No attacks. I ate a Twix, crackers with soft cheese and a pizza from The Purple Crab.
The silences at work have stopped. I didn’t notice until today but they’ve stopped.
One attack, medium in intensity at around four O’clock. I ate a jacket potato, spaghetti bolognase, and an apple.
No attacks. I ate cheese and onion crisps, soup and some left over lasagne. I drank a glass of red wine.
I was late for work this morning, I had my doctor’s appointment, he asked if I’d seen any pattern in this diary and I had to tell him no, I could see nothing. No food, no activity, not exercise or daylight or happiness or air pollution or temperature. He frowned and admitted that sometimes it was practically impossible to find the causes behind these things. he prescribed me some...
Thirteen attacks yesterday. A plethora of attacks. The most I think I have ever experienced. Each one like an assault from a plank of wood, a dull crack every time. Where’s the pattern? I spend all my time looking inward. Where’s the pattern? Where’s the pattern? What is it I’m doing? Is it my mood? Is it the time of day? Is it the location of Pluto? What’s the...
Three attacks today, each one slightly shorter than the other, each one fading away a little further, as I came a little closer to the surface. There’s still flurries of pointed silences at work, but no one tells me anything. Debbie is the only one who talks to me, and she says nothing, she says words but there isn’t one of them that I’m interested in hearing. She talks about her...
The weekend was full of attacks, I lost track of how many or how long or what I ate or what I did. I slightly overdosed on painkillers, but the relief they brought was like white squares on an infinite, mazelike and ancient checker board floor. I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t leave my bed, I began to have vast fever dreams of dusty and cavernous hallways, intricately recursive ship...
Eight attacks today. The pain become so vivid I had to go home. Each attack was only a minute long, and they all struck after lunch. I had a cereal bar, a pack of raisins and a cheese sandwich for lunch. What’s so strange about that? I’ve eaten cheese sandwiches and raisins and cereal bars nearly all my life. I tried to explain it to my boss.
“It’s not always like...
No attacks today, but I told Dominic that I thought they might be coming back.
“That’s bad,” he said. “How long had you been clear of them?”
“I can’t remember, it must be in my diary somewhere.”
“Has the diary helped?”
“What?
“Have you found anything that could be setting them off?”
“Oh. No. Not really. But I...
Four attacks today. One of them was at home, but the other three were at work. Only one of them lasted over ten seconds. I had to go to the bathroom for that and sit there with my head in my cold hands, waiting. I don’t think anyone noticed because when I came back, Debbie started talking to me about her daughter.
“She’s looking for work at the moment, but it’s hard...
Two attacks today. I thought the first one was just a regular headache until it fully hit me. It lasted six minutes, I’d forgotten how much it hurt. How do you remember pain? It leaves no scars and it doesn’t photograph well. Sometimes I imagine it must be doing something to me. So acute and insistent, it must make some difference to my body. I don’t remember what I ate before...
I went to The Purple Crab and had pizza and saw friends. I had mushrooms and olives on the pizza, but I always have mushrooms and olives on my pizza. I spent a long time talking to Hackett.
“There’s two types of people,” he said. “There are people who are good at talking about themselves and people who are good at listening to people talk about themselves. But only the...