"Stop calling me, damnit!"

Beeeeeeep.

Most medical textbooks will tell us there are four parts to a migraine: the prodrome, the aura, the headache and the postdrome. This is the cycle of my everyday life. Unending and unstoppable.

Mine always start in my thumb. This is the preamble. Everything will be going fine and then my right thumb will start to tremble ever so slightly. It will keep twitching even when I cover it with my other hand and try to stop it as I rush home. It will tap unevenly against the porcelain as I grasp the side of the sink and convince myself aloud that it will only be a small one.

It’s never a small one.

The aura. I know what it feels like, but I’m usually too busy administering pain killers to observe it properly. The drugs take the edge off but not enough.

I’m almost thankful when the waves of nausea come. The sick coughing and cramping…it takes my focus off the growing pain for one minute, allow me to prepare myself for what will come next.

But I can never be prepared enough.

A jarring, a grinding and a crushing again and again. I can’t hear my own wimpering or even my own thoughs. I can only sit in the dark and wait for the nosebleed. All the pressure will make its way out of my head and then I will wake up and feel focused, feel elated, feel high. This is the afterglow. This is when I work. This is when the patterns appear with such clarity. This is where I come so very close to understanding. Until I feel my thumb starting to twitch…