The Bean & Seed

My earliest memory is one of pain radiating from the back of my skull through my left eye. I do not remember crying out, but I know my dad came to my aid with a warm washcloth to place on the back of my head. In my mind’s eye, the scene plays out from above my bed at a height of 15-20 feet. After this experience in my childhood, I do not recall having this same pain again until I was a teenager. I came to call them headaches, because what else would they be? I had one about every 6 months, so nothing to really worry about. I would simply warm a washcloth and sleep them off. This lasted for nearly 20 years. In 2015, I had an episode that went on for two weeks and I became completely debilitated.

I’ve come to know that this is called status migrainosus. This simply means a migraine that lasts for more than 72 hours. From 2015-2020, I would estimate that I had a migraine for 3-4 days out of every week. The pain I experienced started exactly the same as the one I remember from childhood. The difference was, there seemed to be no relief and the intensity felt limitless. There were also the additions of aura, nausea, and endless rebound headaches.

I was prescribed Sumatriptan during the episode that went on for 2 weeks. I was scared to take it. I will never forget the relief, however brief it was. Because a good burger had seemed to help my head, my wife and I were eating at Red Robin when I took that first dosage. In this instance, my mind’s eye sees the scene playing out catercorner from a few tables away. During the meal, I remember it felt like cool water being poured over my head. This is a side effect of triptans called paresthesia. It occurs as the medication causes blood vessels swollen by the migraine to constrict. I had an hour. It was bliss. I remember feeling so joyous.

After my hour of relief, the pain returned, but it was less than before. This started me on a 7-year journey through the management of migraine pain. At work, I used all of the leave I had. At home, I sat in the dark with my trusty warm washcloth; with a heat pack; with an ice pack. I stood in the shower begging God to take away the pain. I tossed and turned through the night; still begging, but simply for sleep.

Through all of this I was promoted three times at work and became the chief of my division. I say this so you can understand that I was still putting in the effort professionally and so that you can understand how difficult the following decisions were.

In 2020, I started working from home during the pandemic. In an environment where I had full control of my space, more time to rest, and access to what I needed when I needed it, my migraine frequency was cut in half. When it became clear that I would be called back into the office, I sought employment elsewhere in order to maintain the relief I had found. I changed organizations, I left management, I laid low. My migraine frequency was cut in half again down to about 1 episode a week. This lasted for 2 years. My new employer, which I had pursued because their positions were already work from home prior to the start of the pandemic, inexplicably made the call to start moving people back onsite. My migraine frequency increased again.

Sheepishly, I came to my wife with the idea that I leave employment to stay at home to do the cooking and cleaning, and to keep the migraines at bay. She loved this plan instantly. In my mind’s eye, I remember this moment exactly the way I saw it firsthand; in the kitchen across from Mary, the kindest and most caring person I know. We sold our house, went down to one car, and streamlined in every way that we could.

Over the last 2 years, I’m back to one migraine every 6 months or so. In hindsight, the things I know now could have alleviated a lot of what I was experiencing. Reduced stress, the right routine, the right supplements, the right medications. But that’s not the way life works. There were a lot of wrong medications, wrong diagnoses, and a lot of events outside of our control that made life harder during my migraine journey. The take away I’d like to leave you with is that sometimes the solutions to our problems have to be found by thinking outside the box. I was doing everything the way society said I should be and I was suffering for it. It was very hard to think and plan through all of these migraines. Hard to learn a completely new job. Hard to be told that what gave me relief would be taken away. After 7 years of trying to make it work, a final solution had to be put into place. Our decision shocked people. It still shocks people. But I can’t go back. The migraines, the side effects, the disruption to our new norm; there are things in life that just aren’t worth it, and more money is one of them. But still, there is always hope, you just have to be committed to finding it.

Thanks for reading, Matt

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