The Mindful Migraine

In Australia, you can get your Learners License when you turn 16, and then sit a driving test for your Provisional License when you are 17.  When I went for my driving test (decades ago), my examiner told me that I had done everything right and broken no laws, but that he wouldn’t pass me because I wasn’t confident enough; “you’re thinking too hard about everything”.  I was disappointed at the time – but he was right.  Driving is a whole brain, whole body, endeavor.  You have to look and listen, use your hands and feet, your logical brain and your intuition.  And you have to do it all simultaneously and effortlessly.  I eventually got my license about a month later and have been driving without incident ever since. 

18 months ago, when my migraines were at their worst, driving was one of the first things I gave up.  I could feel myself turning back into my 16-year-old self; use the indicator to turn right, take your foot off the pedal, pivot your ankle, depress the brake, wait at the intersection.  It was as if every decision I made was a super-conscious one.  No one was allowed to listen to music when I was driving, and I gave up driving when I realized no one was allowed to speak (to me or each other) when I was behind the wheel.  You CAN NOT drive when you have a migraine – you are a risk to yourself and others – DON’T DO IT.

Yesterday, on the other hand, I was feeling good, so I was out and about.  I was on a highway where everyone was going 100 kilometers an hour (approximately 62 miles an hour).  No problem.  I saw two cars pull onto the road in front of me from a bypass.  Totally normal.  And then the second car decided he didn’t want to be behind the first car.  He decided to overtake the first car, on the inside lane, without indicating, and threw himself into the inside lane.  The only problem?  I was in the inside lane.  I made the split-second decision to swerve off the road and onto the verge to avoid being hit.  I was only off the road for maybe half the car’s width and a few cars’ length, and then I was back on the road, back travelling 100 km/hr.  Meanwhile the other driver must have had a big shock at his near miss, because he fell right back, and looked like he might have even pulled over.

In the two or three seconds in which it happened my heart raced blood from my body to my head.  A minute after the near miss my heart was still pounding, and my head felt twice its normal size.  It was as if all the blood in my body had flown to my brain to help assess the emergency.  My fingers and toes even felt a bit tingly.  Once I’d calmed down, I realized two things:

Firstly, I was very lucky.  Lucky that the roadside I swerved onto was tarred.  Lucky there wasn’t a rock wall.  Lucky there wasn’t a possie of cyclists.  Lucky there wasn’t a low-key guardrail beside a highfalutin cliff plunge.  All of which exist at other points along the same road.  I’d like to think that my brain took all these factors into account before it decided to swerve.  Maybe it did.  Maybe it just decided in that split second that swerving was better than being hit and didn’t think through the consequences.

Secondly, and I know you know where this is going.  There was no way that having a hot-balloon-head feeling from the adrenaline rush was going to end anywhere other than a migraine.  I drove straight home, deep breathing and humming the alphabet as I went (more on that in another post).  My migraine-brain was nice enough to wait until I got home and drank a big cup of water, then exploded.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a bad migraine, but this time, half a tablet and an hour’s rest wasn’t going to fix it.  I got so sick I spent half the night sleeping on the floor in the lounge room to be close to the bathroom.  So sick I didn’t even go get the inflatable mattress I have ready for such moments.  I just grabbed a couple of throw-blankets and a couch cushion and made myself a nest on the rug.

Good news is that it didn’t turn into a three-dayer, and I’m up and about this morning.  Bad news is that I still feel ick.  “Bah humbug” and “¡Ay, caramba!”.  I don’t like migraines.  It’s so frustrating to think that you’re on a forward path for your healing journey, only to crash.  It sometimes feels like its two steps forward, one step back.  I must remember, however, that even this messy maneuver is still moving me forward, albeit slowly.  What’s more, I really must remember that in this instance, getting a migraine was a good outcome; I was lucky.

Take care out there, Linda.