THE UNFORTUNATE END TO THIS ATTEMPT
I was prepared to power through the next few days. I knew it was going to be hard, but I’d made it this far and was not about to give up easily. I was chugging along just fine, watching a movie to keep myself awake when something started interfering with the upper right quadrant of my vision: jagged flashing lights. This was a pretty sure signal that I’m about to get a horrible, scalp-splitting headache and was going to have to spend to the next nine hours curled up in a dark hole. I’ve only gotten about three or four migraines in my life, but they ones I’ve had are incapacitating.
However, this was just an inconvenience at this point because I had a sample of medication that is meant to circumvent the worst parts of the headache, so I took it. About twenty minutes later, I was pretty sure it was working. I was only getting a moderate headache and still had a blind spot in my vision. Now, I actually find the blind spots I get kinds of cool because it’s not like I’m aware I’m missing a chunk in my field of vision. It’s just like it’s not there. I can look at my face in the mirror and if I stare right at my nose, I can only see me left eye. It’s as if the rest of my face the top right part of my face in my reflection has been geometrically bent out of view. It’s trippy to play with.
Anyway, so I knew I was in for a rough and probably painful day. The next few things that happened though were damn scary and a pretty big indication that my head was not okay. I was typing to a friend online, and suddenly, couldn’t get my thoughts out coherently. I wasn’t sure what I was typing but I knew it wasn’t grammatically correct and I wasn’t even sure if the words were the right words. I tried saying out loud what I was trying to type, and I couldn’t do it. Everything was slurred or I used the wrong word. Now, this has happened to me before, but I was in a chemical laboratory at the time and thought it was due to some chemical I had accidentally inhaled. The fact that this was happening again, far from any chemicals, and at the time as a migraine was not good. I called my dad and tried my best to explain what was going on. I was trying to say “I’m losing the ability to talk” and it took me about five times to get it right. I kept says “looking” or “loothing” or “looging”, it was really frustrating. Eventually I got the message across and he was going to come home. He suggested I call 911, but I don’t think I could have explained to them what was happening… About five minutes later I had to call him back and inform him that my right hand was going numb and that he should probably take me to the hospital. The not being able to talk only lasted strongly, to the point where communication was near impossible, for about five minutes but it felt like it could come back at any minute. I would occasionally mess up words in the few hours that followed. For instance, I would try to say “backyard” and say “background” or I wanted to say “in my brain” and instead said “membrane.” The numbness in my hand was short lived too, but at this point, it was possible that I was having a stroke or something.
I always hear people complain about how they had to wait forever to be seen at an emergency room, but let me tell you, if you walk in there with a malfunctioning brain, they see you pretty quick, basically right after you fill out the paperwork. I was fairly coherent again when the doctor saw me. They booked me for an MRI and MRA and ran an EKG as well because after a few hours of being in there I started having chest pains. I was given some Maalox anti-acid cocktail to eliminate heartburn as the cause of the chest pains. It was vile and had the consistency and taste of toothpaste mixed with mouthwash, and unfortunately, numbed my throat well enough that I could barely swallow. It felt like my throat was going to close up and stop me from breathing. I had remained completely calm so far in the experience, but the feeling of impending suffocation was enough to unnerve me. I didn’t freak out, but my heart rate certainly blasted up to about 150 according to the annoying beeping heart/O2 monitor I was hooked up to.
So after about 8 hours in the hospital bed, which felt much shorter to me because I kept dozing off but was probably excruciatingly long for my poor Dad, I was told that the MRI, MRA, and EKG all came back normal. It turns out I have “complicated” migraines which can have symptoms that appear to be stroke-like. In all honesty, this episode was probably brought on by exhaustion, as migraines often tend to be triggered by stress.
I didn’t realize it until I thought about it, but the day prior to this episode, I had run about 5 miles and walked another 4. I’d also probably not eaten enough and had messed up a couple of naps in a row, so I suppose it’s not too surprising that my brain rebelled. It was a good attempt, but unfortunately, I’m going to call it quits for now, though I am open to trying polyphasic sleep again in the future.
