Lewis Carroll

Bernhard Hassenstein

Margaret Cho

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Margaret Cho (photograph by Austin Young). © 2004 Austin Young (http://video.margaretcho.net/ margaret_cho_photos/misc/ margaret_cho_austin_young_02.JPG, August 8, 2004)

Migraine

By Margaret Cho

I was out yesterday with a terrible migraine that lasted approximately 34 hours. What brought it on was fitful sleep and then mounting stress levels from waking until it peaked midday and stayed at a painful plateau until I attempted sleep late again that evening.

In my dreams the headache continued. It is a strange phenomenon, to be reminded in dream time, which I consider as valid as real time, to carry over the frailty of your own body. As I walked the gummy streets and dark alleys of slumber, where my feet would stick and sink like quicksand on the sidewalk, I still clutched my head in agony.

It means several things, this pain. Most certain, as has been confirmed by my physician, is that it is a migraine that needs medication, but I have trouble filling and refilling my prescription. I hate the pharmacy, with the long lines of other suffering fools, dying to get their fix of whatever. Even though the drugs aren't illicit, I hate to be reliant on chemicals to get by. I would rather my eyes just collapse into the pressure of my head. Plus, the foil packets of pills that I need are grossly overpriced, and my internal cheapskate would never allow such financially grandiose means to alleviate any of my own discomfort.

Tylenol hurts my stomach, so I have to choose between one or the other. My solution has been to hang my head off the edge of my bed and allow the blood to flow back against gravity. I also use a small roller bottle of Kabbalah Headache Oil to massage my scalp. I don't know anything about the ancient Jewish mystical text so enamored by all the Hollywood stars, but that formula is a lot like Ben Gay, and it feels like I am rubbing heroin right into my head. There aren't any drugs in it, not anything harder than tea tree oil, but it helps.

I had been advised years ago, when this pain first started, that I was deeply conflicted, that there was a war going on in my head, and that war would end in migraines. I am not sure what I am conflicted about, which adds to the conflict, because now I am conflicted about being conflicted. I don't plan on going to the Kabbalah Center to find out what I am really conflicted about, because it is on the West Side, and that is too far away from my house for me to even consider driving there, and risk another headache from looking directly at the sun through the windshield. What would they tell me anyway? I am not sure that a red string around my wrist is going to solve anything. I am curious, but it is too much time in the car. If I am to cross Fairfax, it has to be a life threatening situation.

The solution for me has become to just live with the pain. It's blinding, it's debilitating, it gets in between myself and my work, but I suppose if I look at it in a different way, it is something that reminds me that I am alive, that I am still here, that I can feel, and that is really good to know.

(From Margaret Cho's blog, http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/migraine.htm, June 16, 2004)

Author: Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Tue. June 1, 2004

Lewis Carroll

Bernhard Hassenstein

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