Aspirin

28-08-2011

As the fates would have it, for the second week in a row I have had a killer migraine on Saturday. First thing in the morning, woken up by it, lasting for a large portion of the day. I generally get three to four bad migraines a year, really bad ones. Ones that destroy entire days. To have two of them so close together sorta ranks high on the unfair chart.

If things weren't bad enough this weekend we just happened to be up with the ladyfriend's family for a visit. I hate having migraines when I have something on. I really hate them when I am staying in another person's home. I get extremely conscious of how anti-social I become while dealing with the pain. I also don't like sleeping around when I should be engaging in conversation. But this weekend, this migraine, that wasn't going to happen. Six different pill combinations pumped into me from seven in the morning and no relief. I couldn't sleep. It didn't help that for some reason the neighbours decided to start drilling holes into the wall at eight in the morning.

On a Saturday! Surely that is illegal?

Anyway as the day progress, the pain got worse and my innards decided that vomiting was a good idea I did something I rarely ever do with migraines: I listened to a suggestion that involved going to the hospital.

That's right, The Jester agreed to go to hospital and a see a doctor. Generally I would have to have some falling off, some gushing blood and an alien parasitic slug munching on my brains before I would consider going to a hospital voluntarily.

Even then it would be a last resort, sure I could walk most of those injuries off.

But the head did not show any signs of getting better and when both herself and her mammy suggested seeing a medical person it seemed like the best idea in the world.

The lady friend drove me to the nearest hospital but we hadn't gone more than five feet down the road when my stomach decided it wanted to join in on the days activities. Chunks were blown, luckily into a prepared shopping bag. But some drips managed to make a break for freedom onto the car mat. We pulled in and the ladyfriend ask her mommy to come out with some new bags.

Bless her Northern heart she was out the road in under a minute with loo roll for blowing my nose, a hundred new bags and a half litre of water to wash my mouth out with.

Once cleaned up it was off to the hospital.

A lot of this is routine type hospital stuff. Questions were asked, answers given, pity provided from the nursing staff. Once I got in to see the doctor she noticed that my sensitivity to light was quiet high and turned off the lights in the room we were in. She then did something that I have yet to have happen with a doctor on any of my migraine related visits: she helped.

Her suggestion seemed a little strange at first. She was going to give me some aspirin. Aspirin? I was once prescribed stupidly powerful pain pills and here was a doctor giving me the mildest pain controlling thing I had ever heard off.

Until she mentioned the dosage.

Nine hundred milligrams of Aspirin. Something that came in a shot glass and looked like fizzing milk.

I ain't all that with the medical schooling, but nine hundred anythings sounds high.

I downed the concoction and waited to see what happened.

What happened was nothing short of a mother-fucking-miracle. It was as if somebody had pulled a stopper in my internal bathtub and emptied all the pain bath water out, along with the baby.

From my head came this flood of relief, literally in a strange watery feeling. My head cleared up in a matter of minutes, my eyes started to accept light once more, my limbs stopped shaking violently. In under ten minutes I was able to stand up again and the pounding in my skull had stopped.

There was still some trace of the migraine, but the doctor then gave me a strange little pill that would get rid of any left over bits of migraine.

It was the strangest experience of my migraine-life. Instant relief from the migraine and a doctor that actually helped me for a change rather than just go "It's all in your head, now eat these skittles."

Sadly this high a dosage of Aspirin is something they won't prescribe as it is something they don't want taken for every single migraine. Understandable really. Considering the level of pain I was in I wouldn't want to have to have it close to hand all the time and build up a tolerance to it after taking it for any old migraine. But lord above I won't be forgetting that dosage anytime soon.

Of course a big thanks has to be given to the ladyfriend, once again, and her entire family who made the whole experience that little bit easier to deal with. If memory serves me it is probably the worst migraine they have ever seen me suffer with. Fingers crossed they won't see one like it again.

Blue_jester