Travel with Chronic Illness: Learning Gratitude 🙏 & Perspective
How I managed expectations, symptoms, and anxiety while traveling internationally with chronic migraine.
coping
Learning How to Live with Chronic Migraines
During the past four years, I’ve learned many lessons in how to live with chronic migraines. I delve into the most important, most freeing, lesson.
Weathering the Storm in a Mammoth Winter of Migraines and Snow
This winter was an epic winter of snow – and an epic winter of migraines. How I resisted the urge to hibernate and found adventure and joy despite Migraine.
I See You: A Letter to the Chronically Ill
To the woman with a migraine serving me coffee: I see you. I see how you are trying not to squint beneath the fluorescent light. I… Read More »I See You: A Letter to the Chronically Ill
One Less Wild Woman
One Less Wild Place Wild places to walk, sweat, explore, and breathe in are precious. Growing up in the suburbs, wild places that were near… Read More »One Less Wild Woman
All in a Day’s Work: How to Use the Power of Music to Conquer Pain
“Fear – fear’s a powerful thing. I mean, it’s got a lot of firepower. If you can figure out how to wrestle that fear to… Read More »All in a Day’s Work: How to Use the Power of Music to Conquer Pain
A Fresh Start
Just before sunset I put on my neglected running shoes and went for a walk. As the sun set over the wetlands, my mom and I… Read More »A Fresh Start
Chronic Illness and Living Vicariously Through Books
I have had a migraine for the past THIRTY SIX days. Surprisingly, I have not yet gone insane. I have been more or less glued… Read More »Chronic Illness and Living Vicariously Through Books
The Healing Power of Self-Compassion
On Monday morning, I experienced the simple bliss of waking up without a headache. Over a year ago, my neurologist told me that waking up every morning with a headache is a sign that I am over-using medication (triptans and Ibuprofen in my case) causing rebound headaches. Though I rarely treat my headaches and migraines with any medication that can cause rebound, my head is still wracked with pain most mornings before I even open my eyes.
Monday morning was different, though. I woke up pain-free and ecstatic to spend the day with my boyfriend who is visiting me after a long summer apart. We enjoyed coffee and breakfast together, and the pleasure of spending a pain free morning with the person I love the most made me giddy with gratitude and relief.
These moments of respite from pain are bittersweet and always too short-lived. Shortly after breakfast, I was hit with extreme fatigue. Nausea, light sensitivity, and eventually throbbing pain soon followed until I was fully immersed in a migraine. I went from a happy young woman ready for a beautiful day to an exhausted, brain-dead dark-dweller. In my pain and disappointment, I cried and raged and internally bashed my body for being useless for little more than misery or pain. Even after two years of chronic migraines, every single migraine feels like a betrayal.
My body deserves my compassion, not my rage.
I know this but have to remind myself of it daily. I expect a level of compassion from my family, friends, partner, and doctors that I have trouble giving myself. When a migraine sets in my emotional strength is drained, and my mind wanders easily to negative, self-critical thinking patterns. There is nothing unhealthy about complaining externally or internally when you’re in pain, but when you’re in pain for so much of your life those thinking patterns can take over and lead to isolation and a further diminished quality of life.