Today’s topic is pain. Holiday pain.

The most debilitating headache I ever had was migraine I woke up to when I was living in Mississippi. I’d woken up with migraines before but that one was special. I took medicine and drank coffee (and added a shot of booze when that was still a part of my home migraine cure) and tried to go back to sleep. However, the pain was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep. Every position caused pain and nausea and, in the end, all I could do was sit on the sofa in a slightly slouched position that somehow mitigated the pain and wait for the medicine to kick in.

Unfortunately it took most of the morning for the medicine to help enough that I could go back to bed. I was just a sad guy slouching on the sofa and unable to move. I couldn’t read and I couldn’t raise my head enough to watch TV comfortably. (Also, TV is pretty bad for a migraine especially as that was the era when the networks began blasting commercials at full volume.)

I do not remember if I missed work that day or if it was a holiday. All I remember is the pain and the sofa.

Today’s headache was almost that bad. I realized how serious it was and took the medicine and drank coffee and tried to do some work (today was a day off but I had plans to work on some things for my classes). Failing that, I tried taking a short nap. Luckily, I was able to get a decent nap. Unfortunately it didn’t help much.

Eventually I took a second nap that lasted most of the afternoon. I’m now in migraine hangover mode and taking a serious look at recent changes in my diet and recent weight gain.