In Bed

                                                                                                                          -Joan Didion (b. 1934-)

The writer suffers from migraine headache 3 to 5 times a month. She spends one or two days a week unconscious with pain. So it has become the central part of her life. In the beginning days, she tried to avoid the drug but now-a-days she takes it.

Didion didn’t have anything wrong with her at all except the migraine headache. So everyone thought it was only her imagination. She tried to ignore it and went to school and to her work, but she had to run onto her bed whenever it attacked. She wished a neurosurgeon would do a lobotomy on house call.

The writer had migraine for the first time when she was eight. It took her many years before she finally accepted it as a part of her life. It can be started by any of the various causes like stress, allergy, fatigue, an abrupt change in barometric pressure, an embarrassing disagreement over a parking ticket, etc. It is also hereditary. Both of the writer’s grandmothers had migraine. Her father and mother have also got the disease as their inherited property.

When migraine starts, the amount of serotonin in the blood falls sharply. Methysergide, or Sansert, a migraine drug, has some effect on serotonin. The medicine is a derivative of lysergic acid and has many side effects. Another preventive medicine ergotamine tartrate, which helps to constrict the swelling blood vessels, is also used.

Despite the availability of the medicines, none of them touches migraine headache once it has begun. Migraine headache has the symptoms like mild hallucinations, temporary blindness, a gastrointestinal disturbance, a painful sensitivity, a sudden overpowering fatigue, a weakened power to understand words, and inability even to do the daily actions. When migraine attacks the writer, she loses the house keys, spills things, loses the focus of her eyes and becomes unable to speak properly and logically. She also has a chill, sweating, nausea, and debility of endurance. She feels blessed because no one dies of migraine headache.

Didion’s husband has also a migraine headache. It is unfortunate for him but she is happy because he cannot accuse her of cheating. The doctors have given the name ‘migraine personality’ to a person who tends to be ambitious, inward, intolerant of error, rather rigidly organized and perfectionist. The writer is a perfectionist.

Heredity is the unavoidable cause of migraine headache. Now the writer has learned to live with it. It never comes when she is in real trouble. However, it comes when she has some unfinished work at home.

Whenever migraine comes, the writer just lies down on bed and lets it happen. She concentrates on her pain. After ten or twelve hours, the pain recedes. She feels refreshed. The migraine acts as a circuit breaker. When it is over, she feels happy again.