Recently I was made aware that June, though known for a multitude of things, is also Headache and Migraine Awareness Month. Heeding this knowledge put some pressure on me as far as what I thought would most effectively explain the huge affect “brain pain” (as I like to call it), in any of its forms (chronic headaches, migraines, concussions, and brain injuries as a whole) can have on someone’s daily life. So, I’ve decided that the best way to establish this is to explain the many ways in which I’ve come to live waiting on my brain’s every beck and call.
One difference, for example, is that I’ve had to become highly accustomed to planning things very far in advance. This is because I’ve had to adapt to a new lifestyle where I have to “save up” if I want to be able to go out to dinner with friends or spend a day doing a lot of walking around from place to place, or even to comfortably be able to sit through a church service on Sunday mornings. By “save up” I mean that I have to constantly be aware of how many stressors I’m exposing my brain to throughout each day, and limit that exposure, so that my head can afford to take a hit that night I go out to dinner or that morning I go to church. If I don’t plan ahead and monitor the exposure I allow to affect my headaches, I won’t be able to survive a loud restaurant with clanking dishes and lots of talking people and the many lights hanging around me. If I go through the week not bothering to consider the fact that I need to be functional that night or allow myself to be exposed to too many pressures my headaches will not only spike for a few hours during the day, or maybe the rest of the day, but will eventually rise throughout the week until my base headache is so high that I can’t even get up from the couch or walk to the kitchen without my head pounding in furious pain, let alone survive an entire dinner in a place full of so many triggers.
That being said, despite how diligently I try to “save up” throughout the week for a big event, more than likely I’m going to have such a killer headache by the time I get home that I’m not going to want to do anything, but go straight up to take my medicine and then fall right into bed. Not only that, but because sleeping is the best way to allow a damaged brain to heal, I’m probably going to do my best to make sure I go out on a night where I can sleep in as long as my head requires the next morning. Many times I’ll end up sleeping eleven or twelve hours to recover from a night out to dinner. In the cases of Sunday morning church I often come home and take a nap for a couple hours during the afternoon before my brain revives enough that I feel I can be productive.
The most deciding factor in how much I sleep in or how often I nap during the day is how aware and effective I need to be to complete the tasks laid out for me for the next day. This is a huge reason why I’m not able to go back to school right now. As it is I can manage to work part time as long as I keep up with my sleep at night and take naps however frequently is necessary during the day (obviously not while at work, though).
However, despite my efforts to sleep as long as possible each day and to take naps when my head says it’s time for a break, my base headache is still too high for me to be able to sit down and really dig in deep to a subject for very long at all. In attempt to keep myself somewhat nerdy I play multiple different quiz games on my phone regularly and work puzzles in my Sudoku book. I force myself to work out math problems (however simple) that I come across in everyday life just to make sure that I still can (and if I’m honest, some days I just really can’t). But even in these feeble attempts to keep my mind sharp and aware I can’t force my brain to work through them for longer than about ten minutes at a time for the games on my phone (the lights of the screen don’t help either, even though they’re set very low) and about 30 minutes tops on the Sudoku puzzles (which is only about two puzzles in the “easy” section since it takes my brain so much effort to try to work through the puzzles and tires me out). In addition, I usually pick only one of these options a day because the more I push my head and try to force it to be able to do more, the worse it is for me in the long run dealing with a worse spike that’ll last longer and in making it harder for my brain to heal overall. It’s for this reason I know that at this stage in my recovery school is not a realistic part of my daily life; I wouldn’t be able to sit in brightly lit classrooms, staring at a bright white board or brightly lit projection screen for an entire lecture, let alone be able to listen to the lecture full of specific words and phrases that I would need to not only know how to define, but to process and understand. I know this because that’s what it was like before I finally had to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer be successful in my classes and needed to pursue a medical withdrawal, so I could try to ease the amount of pressure on my brain and allow it time to heal.
On another note, my headaches also spike due to the change in air pressure when it rains. Typically it seems that the worse the storm-or really, the more dramatic change in air pressure- the higher my headaches spike and the less I can function as a result. Therefore, for this reason, when I’m at work and a storm comes through it becomes much harder for me to focus and perform my duties. The worse my headaches get the worse I feel: I get more and more exhausted, mentally and physically have less energy, it becomes much harder for me to seem genuinely impressed or amused by anything, and my mental processing slows considerably. That being said, if I’m not at work or somewhere that I’m obligated to stay, I often make a point to go or stay home and curl up on the couch or take a nap and try my best to avoid doing anything else that could make my headache worse. The last thing I need when experiencing a spike in my headaches that I can’t do anything about, is to go around doing things that would contribute to that pain if I can choose not to do them.
It’s usually times like these when I either turn on Netflix and watch a show (usually Bones, my favorite) that I’ve already seen multiple times or put in Disney movies I’ve already seen many times because in choosing those specifically my brain doesn’t have to do any guesswork or questioning at all. Watching TV is already a pretty mindless activity, but I’m just going one step further to make sure my brain has even less to process. And because it’s my TV (or my parents that I have the right to control) I can turn the volume down as low as necessary and turn the brightness of the screen down, as well, to even further reduce the amount of stress on my head. This is also something I often do when my head hurts too badly for me to be able to fall asleep; it keeps me entertained and distracted, at least a little bit, so that maybe I won’t notice the screaming pain of my head as much. If I don’t try to distract myself and I can’t fall asleep it leaves me lying in my bed and (quite literally sometimes) writhing in pain, not knowing what to do with myself as I remain completely unable to lessen my headaches.
Nevertheless, sometimes all the attempts I make to monitor the exposure of stressors and to get plenty of sleep, and plan ahead are made completely pointless in a matter of minutes. Whether due to a combination of factors I didn’t notice adding up, or a series of events I couldn’t control, or if my brain just decided to have a terrible day, within minutes I can end up at the mercy of my headaches. My headaches have forced me to leave work early, leave social gatherings early, say no to parties, concerts, even cosmic bowling, taken away my ability to sing with the praise band at church (which I loved), forced me to permanently retire from my absolutely favorite sport (even recreationally), and most serious of all they’ve forced me to withdraw from my freshmen year of college and left me waiting helplessly to know whether or not this will be a permanent adjustment.
So, I will leave you with this important message to ponder before your life goes merrily on. If you know someone suffering from chronic headaches, or migraines, or a brain injury of any kind, maybe try not to be so quick to cast a disgusted face on those when they turn in early, or frequently decline your invitations to go out, or don’t leave the house much, or look like they’re amounting to very little. I suggest that first you take the time to hear their story and their struggle and to consciously take note of the effort it takes for them to wave it off as if it’s not a huge limiting factor in their life. It’s possible that the few times they’ve accepted your invitations to get coffee or tag along to a party or go see a movie with you, it’s taken them all week to save up for those occasions, an entire week of preparation to join you per your request. So, instead of thinking about how much they don’t attend, maybe look into how much effort is required of them to come to even one social outing for you because that could be the difference that shows you just how much they’re going through and how important you really are to them.
Brain Delay 