For as long as I've known Jean, she's had migraines. Bad ones. Ones that send her into a darkened room to lie quietly for hours. These migraines take their toll, and leave little energy for everyday life. Since she could get two or three a week during a bad week, that meant she was always playing catch-up.
Over the years, medications for migraines have improved, certainly becoming less toxic, making the trade-offs more palateable. But none of the meds sufficed to truly control Jean's migraines. But this last year has been different. After working with her doctor to gradually try out an array of new drugs, some of which gave her nightmares so severe and disturbing that she had to get off them, she now has meds that are very effective.
She can go weeks without having a single migraine (the record was eleven weeks). She still is prey to ordinary pedestrian headaches, but after years of migraines, those are merely tiring, not oppressive. So now her body has resources to fight all the other things, allergies, colds and flus, that she normally had no energy left to fight. Result: happy Jean.
She told me last night she is waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I'll be sitting there, thinking about something, and the sky will open up, as if the sun is coming out of the clouds. Only it isn't cloudy. Maybe I'm not even outdoors at the time." So the pessimistic part of her says, "it's probably a stroke." But she knows that it is probably just that she has resources and energy she never had before.
Now to the bon mot of the week. She said these sudden onslaughts of happiness are unpredictable, and so far not followed by corresponding depressions, so no developing bi-polar disorder. Instead, she says, "It's like I've been hit with the Rubber Chicken of Happiness." "qbullet.smiley"
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