migraine

F'ing disc width

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 23:37 on 19 June 2014

Patrick Hard came to mind again today, as I was playing ultimate this evening. I kept thinking, I don't like who I become when I play ultimate [in certain circumstances], thinking of how Patrick stopped playing open because he didn't like who he became when he played open.

When we arrived at the game tonight, the score was already 4-0, good guys winning, and it didn't improve much for the other team in any appreciable way after we started playing. The good-guys team was playing a woman down, as only two women were there, and I was going to be the third, so zone was clearly working for the team, and not working for the other team.

Teams, like people, tend to focus on one thing and ride it, er, obsess on it, for all it's worth. The opposing team was no exception. Their obsession was one of those rules that very, very few people even notice, and only beginning teams pay attention to. Their obsession?

Disc width.

Right. Disc width. One of those calls that no one who can throw makes.

They called disc width a number of times on one of our women players who was marking the thrower, clam in a zone actually. She didn't know what was going on, so they would call it repeatedly. After the third or fourth instance, I yelled back, "You're fine! You're more than a disc width away from him!" to which one of their teammates called to me, "She can't wrap her arms around the thrower."

This is true, she's not allowed to. She also wasn't.

So.

Right.

I was holding my shit just fine for a short while, and then the main woman handler called disc width on me.

When I was an arm length away from her.

There are some things I find inexcusable. One of those is bad sportsmanship on a team beating another team 9-0. I was that bad sportsman tonight. I ignored her, as she was clearly in the wrong, and kept counting. Even if I disagreed with her call, the correct actions were contest or drop two counts and keep going.

I did neither, and kept counting. She called double team again. I stood up from my mark, called violation, and she threw the disc. It came back, and explained to her, "THIS," holding the disc between us, "is disc width," and stepped back to where I was marking, "and this is not." I continued, "I don't care how big your boobs are, or how big my boobs are, even at the narrowest point, we were still more than a disc width apart. Learn your distances," and handed the disc back to her.

I then went round-the-world on her, and marked as hard as I could. It pissed me off that every single other person on the field was standing still, flat footed as we moved. One guy even laughed at my marking, which only served to piss me off even more. The woman complained about my arms being in her way, when neither were they in her way, nor was she even fucking pivoting. She stood there like a blob and spun around.

Give me a fucking break.

If you're going to make bad calls, at least have the skill to fucking back them up.

Given that their whole team was travelling left and right, never bringing the disc up to the line, bringing it to the line 2 meters off from straight up, and running with the disc after catching when they didn't need to take any steps to stop, and making these dumb-ass calls, I did the only thing I could do to stop being a raging bitch.

I left the field.

I left the field, took myself out of play, left my other teammates hanging since we didn't have any subs, and sat at the sideline.

What the fuck was going on? We were winning 9-0, I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THIS GAME. What was wrong?

I found out about an hour later, when my vision disappeared. That rage? Hello, migraine.

So, I am now 3 for 3 with migraines after ultimate. I even jogged today during the game. I took it easy. I sandbagged. I didn't run hard except for maybe one or two sprints tonight, and I still triggered a migraine. My inexcusable behavior has an excuse, the migraine, and it feels dirty to forgive that behavior. I wouldn't have it from any of my team when I was coaching, I shouldn't have it in myself.

Worse, I injured both of my achilles.

I am now blind, hobbled, and in so much pain from the daggers stabbing in my head that, well, come near me and I'll show you what a raging bitch can be. In the meantime, yeah, to the woman who can't throw, can't pivot, and doesn't know the rules, yeah, I'm sorry for my behavior.

Recovery mode

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 15:30 on 10 July 2011

The day after a migraine is always rough. No, no, that's not quite correct. The DAYS after a migraine are always rough. This last one yesterday was rough (that's two for the year, nominally five months apart, this is a good trend compared to previous years), as it was different than my usual ones, and far more painful to add insult to injury. I was at my "standing desk" (read: empty bookcase in the living room where I stand up, as it's the perfect height), typing on some email, when I realized I couldn't see the bottom of the screen. I looked down, I couldn't see my hands.

Usually when I have a migraine, there's a spot in my vision that is gone. Not a spot that's black or a spot that's white, it's a spot that is just gone. I don't see it, and I don't know that I don't see it. When I describe that to people, they don't quite understand, "So it's a white spot?" "No." "So, it's black?" "No." "Grey?" "No, it just isn't there." Think about it this way: what color is the vision beyond your peripheral? What color do you see straight behind you?

You don't. You don't see that color because it isn't color, it's outside your vision. You don't see it, but in this case you know you don't see it. You can't tell me what color it is, though, as it isn't a color, it's just not there.

Same thing with that spot. It's not a color, it just isn't there.

I usually figure out it's not there because the surrounding details don't make sense: an odd word, a missing eye, a smaller field of vision.

That last one is key.

When my vision field is reduced, the rest of my vision comes into sharper focus, with more brilliant colours. It's kinda neat, actually, how intense the rest of my vision becomes, though, really, as a precursor for what's to come, the excitement of the amazing vision wears off really fast.

In one of my typical migraines, that spot increases in size, becomes an arc, that arc separates to become a horn shape, then expands to fill my vision, and I'm lost: my vision is gone, and all I can do is ride it out, wait for my vision to clear in 20 minutes, an hour, a day, I never know how long it'll take.

So, yeah, the auras yesterday were different. It was a blindness sweep from the bottom of my vision around the left side to the top, and was gone. About two hours in, I saw a remnant of a horn, but the headache was bad enough that just noticing it was an impressive feat.

The numbness in my hands will start at my fingertips and move up my arm into my chest and face, and the nausea soon after. I say numbness, but yesterday, I paid attention to it, to figure out if yes, it is numbness or not. For my face, yes, it was indeed numbness, just as with a dentist. Nothing moved correctly, nothing felt right, or really felt at all.

With my hands, though, it wasn't exactly numbness. It was pressure on my hands, not quite like a buzzing, but something close. Not pinpricks, but still small constant pressure. I'll probably pay more attention to it next time.

Today, everything is FUCKING BRIGHT. I'm wearing sunglasses, but it's too bright outside.

Under the influence of a migraine

Blog Posted by kitt at 11:04 on 27 November 2010

Or, how to take care of me when I'm in a lot of pain and can't see anything.

Yeah, well known, I am one of those 300 million people worldwide who suffer migraines. Most people who have migraine headaches have just an incredibly awfully bad headache where the the intense throbbing, often on one side of the head, makes life somewhat unpleasant until it goes away.

"Just."

As if a migraine could ever be "just" a headache. They are horrible awful things, sometimes as bad as "Oh, just kill me now, please" bad, said with complete sincerity. I have a couple friends who also have migraines. They aren't part of the 15% lucky few who have migraines with auras. Now, if you want a really rockin' fun time, that's the way go to.

Did you know that three fourths of migraine suffers are women? Yeah, a fact I find somewhat ironic, as migraines in my family run up the patriarchal side of the family tree from my dad to his dad. Suckasaurus for the Hodsden line.

Yeah, well, this morning, I woke up to another migraine. I've been doing fairly well this year, a far cry from my worst migraine year that included one batch of four days in a row of migraines and just under twenty for the year. That year sucked.

Today, as I was with family, I was surrounded by people who knew what to do, how to take care of me, what I needed to make it through this batch of crap, I wasn't overly worried. There have been some crazy bad migraine timings, though (say, when I was driving my car up the 101, and realized I couldn't see the tires of the car in front of me, that was fun), so I figured, hey, if I'm ever around you and tell you, "I'm having a migraine," you'll know what to do.

1. Safety.

The first thing I need is to be safe. If I'm going blind, which I do with my auras, I want to sleep through as much of it as I can. Losing one's sight is a traumatic experience and defiinitely not one I would recommend to anyone. I will also want to sleep through the worst of the pain that's about to happen. To do this, I need to be able to relax enough to sleep, and the fundamental need at this point is safety. I may be at a friend's house on his couch, in the back of my car pulled over at a rest stop, snuggled in my mom's bed, or curled up under my desk at the office, but I need to believe I'm safe.

2. Pain killers

If I'm still coherent and not asleep yet, I'm going to want pain killers. Rare is the time when I don't have my bottle of acetaminophen, ibupofin, aspirin and combinations of such (excedrin migraine, which has caffeine in it) handy. If I'm lucky, I may have some stronger, left over painkillers from a friend (thanks, Tyler and Adam!). As much as I hate taking drugs, trying to bear through migraine pain is just rather dumb.

3. Darkness

Like most people with migraines, I become somewhat to very photophobic. Normal light from a lamp can become too much very easily. A dark room, or even a darkened room and a pillow or cover over my head is going to work. In desperation, I'll probably have my sunglasses on if I need to be moving, even indoors. Every little bit helps!

4. A bowl

Yeah, if I've eaten in the last two hours, it's not staying down. Much of my body goes numb, and my stomach is going to roll. The numbness is usually pretty awful, starting in my fingertips and moving up my arm in a 20cm segment until it moves from my shoulder to my face and my face goes numb. Usually during that process, my stomach starts, and there isn't much to do but let anything that's down come back up. Yeah, did I mention this is a fun process? I thought I mentioned that detail.

5. Quiet

I remember one time during a migraine when my dad was working on the upstairs bathroom of the house. He was on the other side of the house. He was on a different floor. He was hammering away and each blow sent a reverberating concussion through my head. I eventually called to him and asked him to stop. I remember his looking disappointed, but his expression was also full of understanding. He stopped, and I slept. Reason for that story? I really want quiet, and no noisemakers.

6. Sleep / time

The last things I'm going to need is to handle the worst of the migraine are sleep and time. Sleep to avoid the worst of the pain, and time to recover from the pain. I'll probably be out of commission for anything remotely exciting for the next 24 hours at a minimum. Exercising is out. Anything requiring a physical effort is out. The lingering pain is one that isn't like any other pain I've had, but it's well defined and it sucks.

7. Soup

Yeah, if I've been in pain for hours, and nauseous for most of that time, too, when I'm finally able to eat (eventually!), I'm going to be ravenous. Unfortunately, the only food I'm going to be able to tolerate is going to be something easy to swallow, but still tasty. Soup fits the bill, even in 100˚ heat (just make it a chilled soup, if it's that hot out).

Some day, I'm going to draw up a picture of what my auras look like. Having studied them in depth, oh, JUST THIS MORNING, I can saw, wow, those pictures will be lovely. Until then, hey, if you want to help me, or anyone really, who is having a migraine, yeah, these seven items will give you a good head start. Gentle head rubbing wouldn't hurt either.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:48 on 1 December 2008

So, the weather isn't particularly good today. After dropping Gab off at school, I wandered to the Starbucks as planned, but later purchased a pumpkin spice latte for Jessica and drove back to her house. Her conference call had run over, and another call was scheduled, and you know what?

I was kinda wondering when you'd show up.

Blog Posted by kitt at 12:52 on 14 July 2008

That headache I woke up with this morning was a migraine. I knew it was from the pattern of the pain (one side of my head, the left this morning), the intensity of the pain (not quite 'kill me now' but definitely no working out today) and the insiduous way it appeared. That I cringed at the sunlight streaming in from my bedroom window as I closed the drapes sorta rather sealed the deal, eh?

I wasn't sure about the arm numbness. I was hoping it was just from my arm resting funny on the desk.

But now that you're here, now that you're starting to steal my vision, slowly, surely, without mercy, I'm ready to give up and go back to bed. Kinda sad, really, as I was just getting into the groove of my work.

I'll have to try again this evening, I guess.

Not sure how happy the clients are going to be about this.

Processed? Out!

Blog Instead of being asleep at 17:37 on 25 April 2008, kitt created this:

Well, I called Bob, Kris' dad, today. There's only so many days in a row I can spend in darkness, not moving, wishing for quiet, before every fiber in my body is going to scream for a solution to this ongoing problem. Three times in five months, I've had four in a row, and it's getting out of hand. If it's the wine, or even alchohol in general, fine, I'll stop drinking it.

When Bob called me back, he had some good dietary suggestions for me, which was what I was asking for. I was looking for an elimination diet, maybe to help me figure out what was my trigger. I thought I'd have to cut everything out of my diet and subsist on rice and beans for a while.

I was, thankfully, wrong.

Out of my diet is now: nitrates, nitrites, tyramine, chocolate, sulfites. When I asked how to determine if food has any of these in it, because, let's face it, except for "chocolate," the rest of them are sorta hard to figure out, Bob told me, "Avoid processes foods."

Okay, I can do that.

I've recently switched to a vegetarian diet, though didn't tell very many people about the change. I'm the easiest vegetarian you'll probably ever meet: if you serve me meat, I'll eat it. I like Andy's philosophy that (I'm poorly paraphasing here) wasting the animal is worse than killing the animal in the first place, so if it's there, better to eat it than refuse and have it thrown away. Or something like that.

However, my food choices have been remarkably fruits and vegetable based, even for me. I suspect Lisa would be somewhat pleased.

Update: Okay, after going to the store and buying a bunch of unprocessed snacks, I did the research for high level tyramine foods. I really should have done the check before I left. Now, I don't know if the auras and migraines are dietary triggered, but, if I had to guess, this could very well be my trigger. Check out the foods with tyramine: hard/aged cheeses (check), avocados (check), eggplant (check), oranges (check), grapes (check), nuts (check), soy (check), leftovers older than a day (check).

This is going to take some work. Though, honestly, anything has to be easier than that no meat, no wheat, no dairy, no soy diet I had five years ago. That one was hard.