Vemma diary: February

My worst ever migraine

10 years ago, when I was 22, I had my worst ever migraine. I was asleep when I had the aura - a 30 minute warning to take your medication and fast! It wasn't until the pounding headache started that I woke.

It was a Saturday morning and I was staying at my boyfriend's house. I took two Migraleve tablets, but by this point I was already throwing up and the tablets didn't stand of chance of staying down. Now this has happened to me before - whereby I would have to endure a migraine without any drugs. In my early teens before I even knew it was a migraine that I was experiencing I had no medication at all to take. It's tough. I can't sleep, the pillow feels like concrete and the sickness is relentless. And yet, some how I got through it. I would often imagine that the waves of pain on my forehead were waves crashing onto rocks - a beautiful scene in my mind. It was a form of meditation I guess. And yet on this Saturday morning, things were very different indeed. I could never have imagined a migraine could ever be this bad.

A scary sight

I was like a wild animal unable to communicate my thoughts. I paced up and down the bedroom for hours speaking gibberish. My words were back to front, inside out. I was delirious from the pain and the vomiting would not stop. This must have been a very scary sight for my boyfriend. He had seen me suffer from migraine attacks many times before, but never like this. He wanted to take me to the hospital, but I refused. How could I leave the room? It would have been too difficult, and besides I did not want anyone else to see me in this state. In the end my boyfriend collected medication from the hospital. I couldn't tell you what it was but one tablet went under my tongue and the other tablet took the rectal route. They did the trick and eventually I was able to sleep.

Going to work on Monday was strange. I felt like I had been through that nightmare and here I was back in the office, going about my duties as normal like nothing had happened. After that day, things seemed different. A shift had been made in my mind and my view of migraines had changed forever. The attack had scared me. Why had this migraine been particularly bad. I never want to go through that again, I thought, but it might and I have no idea of when that will be. Sitting here writing this, I am pleased to say that I haven't had to go through that again - touch wood, several times over.