“Mommy, my finger hurts!”
“Your finger hurts? Where?”
“It hurts a lot!”
“Where? Show me.”
“See? Look, I bit that part off right there and now it’s bleeding.”
Emily gave me the ring finger on her left hand. I examined it carefully. She had ripped the cuticle out of its lodge. “Yep – those hurt a lot. Next time, don’t do that.”
“It burns.”
“I know. We’re going to put a Band-Aid on it and it will feel better.”
“Oh – guess what Jenny did to James yesterday at school.”
“You tell me while I put this Band-Aid on.”
“Okay – she kicked him, right down here, and then afterward he was rolling around on the ground holding himself there; and the sound he made sounded like he was trying to cry but he couldn’t; and he was just coughing, and his face looked really weird.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
It usually begins with soreness - Not the kind good soreness I feel after exercise but a growing tightness in one side of my neck, coursing down through one shoulder into my back and hip.
ReplyDeleteIf it came during the day, I might mistake it for tension; indeed tension is one of its causes. But it doesn't - it comes at night. Usually between three and four in the morning. At first it just makes me uncomfortable and I awake with my bedclothes wrapped about my body due to my tossing and turning in sleep. THe moment I move my head I notice it; the steel string drawn taught down one side of my body. Nowadays I have come to recognize the sign. But for years I would just try to go back to sleep. Sometimes I would, fitfully. IT would usually take another hour for the tenseness to spread across the back of my head, up the side over my ear and into my face. When I awake, it is like acid burning in my veins, cramping my neck my face and my head. The pain is hot, and when I open my eyes the faint light filtering in through the blinds is like an on switch slammed with the palm of someone's hand.
The migraine. It quickly courses thorugh my spine, each vertebra burning with pain. The back of my neck, my head, is aching, the skin itself hot to the touch. all the while my head is throbbing.
I bury my face in the pillows to escape the light. I lie stock still under the covers, hoping that by NOT moving and barely breathing the pain will subside. But every breath is accompanied by the sweet sickness of nausea.
The pain continues to rise. Now every motion, Even the furtive opening of my eyes is accompanied by pain. There is no escaping it; it has fastened itself to my spine like to beast and dragon tearing its claws into my back, its jaws firmly clamped around the back of my neck, all the while breathing fire into my flesh.
IT can go on for hours like this. Sometimes the nausea is too much and I run to the bathroom to vomit. Sometimes that triggers diarrhea. On rare occasions both happens: Simultaneously, my body instinctlve seeking to purge itself of whatever poison must be causing this pain.
But this is no poison; this pain is spiritual; it is psychological. It has its roots in expectations of others, the demands I place on myself. Ultimately it is life that hurts; the migraine is just a reflection.
After several hours, I drift off into sleep, exhausted. WHen I awake an hour later, the sensitivity to light is gone, the nausea has subsided and usually I want bread to eat. My head still hurts; but the pain is a normal throbbing headache, rather than the searing migraine of a few hours earlier. After a few more hours, even the throbbing subsides, though my stomach is upset; often for days to come. and I am confused for hours, unable to think clearly, as if I were numb.
I have come to understand that that is the purpose in my life of the migraines I get; to stop me in my tracks; to break me through exhaustion; to numb me and befuddle me to break my addiction to life's stress and to teach me that the body has rules; and I violate them at the risk of pain. Searing pain.
Very cool post from Don. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAZ