Life’s So Much Easier Without a Constant Migraine

Hart and I spent the weekend in San Diego. It was a lovely time with Hart’s dad and his wife, though the lingering memory of the trip is the drive home in which I drove four of the six hours. That’s the remarkable memory: I drove two-thirds of the way home. This is a cause for celebration because it means I felt well enough to drive for that long.

Having some relief from more than a decade of debilitating daily migraines has obviously made a huge difference in my life. There are some big changes — I’m writing a ton and investigating freelance opportunities — but I notice the small changes the most. Things like,

• Waking up after eight hours of sleep and popping right out of bed
• Going straight to work after getting up
• Going grocery shopping and cooking and working and exercising and seeing friends all in the same day
• Making plans and assuming I’ll be able to keep them
• Not having any downtime in a day in which I can read (that’s a good thing — now I read before sleep, not to entertain myself because I can’t move)
• Being able to run my own errands
• Driving when Hart and I go out
• Not having to break for brain fog or fatigue when I’m writing
• Thinking that I need to do something around the house and being able to do it

My health is nowhere close to perfect. I have migraines more days than not. I have head pain every moment of every day. It took me nearly two months to recover from my latest dietary snafu and my current diet is a little shaky. Yet, I find myself saying, “I can’t believe I was able to do that!” regularly, which I usually follow with high-fiving Hart.

That’s really the gist of it: I cannot believe everything I’m able to do. The title to this post is so obvious — of course life is easier without a constant migraine — and yet that’s exactly what I marvel about every day. Doing the tasks of day-to-day life were so difficult for me for so long that they now seem impossibly simple. It’s marvelous.