Posts filed under “Migraine”
It is endured and then it is gone and you wish it had been so much more
Given the ease with which health infuses life with meaning and purpose, it is shocking how swiftly illness steals away those certainties. It was all I could do to get through moment to moment, and each moment felt like an endless hour, yet days slipped silently past. Time unused and only endured still vanishes, as […]
Ill living
Once, when I was much much younger, I told someone I trusted that every day I chose to live. I thought this person might understand something of what it was to live with chronic migraine. But they ordered a wellness check and our interactions turned achingly distant and coldly professional. I am reading the October […]
Borborygmus: the silliest migraine symptom
A long, twisting whine woke me up at 2am today. Startled, my disorientation gave way to exasperated embarrassment as I realized the sound was emanating from my own abdomen. Sleep-fuddled and with no sensation associated with the sound, it took me a few minutes. Migraine induces gastric stasis – this is part of the reason […]
Botox is not a treatment for anxiety and depression and do not fucking tell me to meditate my migraine away
People act like I get migraines because I’m pissed off and sad and don’t exercise enough, but I actually am pissed off and sad and don’t exercise enough because I get too many fucking migraines. The framing of research on migraine co-morbidities kills me. People with migraine, especially chronic migraine, tend to have a bunch […]
Disabled bodies in the apocalypse
Disabled people don’t make it through the apocalypse. At least that’s the conventional wisdom of both speculative fiction and our own world: If the biomedical industrial complex collapses, so do all the people who rely on its products. Corporations need us to believe this, yes, but it’s hard to deny the truth of it. If […]
Why I can’t write a good personal essay | Tenure, She Wrote
I wrote about how my understanding of disability has shifted from internal to external and how that’s affected my ability to get support. A little smarts and hard work and luck can’t make my chronically ill body “productive.” Even if they did, it would only make it alright for me – and that’s not good […]
If you want disabled people to contribute you have to let them. If you want to disabled people to live, you have to support them.
Darwin was ill for much of his life, largely restricted to his home. His mysterious illness was managed with rest and strict routine with work but also a beloved walking path and intimate family time. I don’t think I’m the next Darwin, but I reached for his example when managing my own illness. I learned […]