The Thing About Migraines

Sometimes I wonder if that sharp pain in my brain, the kind leavetaking of a departing migraine*, is actually the onset of a haemorrhage. Shortly after leaving primary school and heading to the big school (circa 400 pupils), one of my new teachers died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage. She was in her 20s, full of life and vibrancy and then boom! that was that and she was gone. This has stayed with me for thirty years.

*I don’t get many migraines now (when I do, I still sometimes get a cluster of between 2 and 4 over the course of a week or so — although this is not happening as often as it used to either, perhaps 1 in 4). Looking at the monthly tracker in my journal (for many things, not just for migraines), I can see that I have had five migraines in total this year. That includes those within a cluster. Not too bad really — when I was working in my last “proper” job, at my worst I got 35 in ONE WEEK. Something changed, right?