Migraines suck, for a variety of reasons.
Unlike the main character of Amber’s Lure, my migraines are painful. As in, I’d best be locking myself in a dark room for a couple hours and God help you if you disturb me/turn on a light/make noise of any kind. Yeah, that kind of migraine. At least I know what they are now. Previously, my doctor diagnosed them as tension headaches, and gave me muscle relaxers. I had one come on during the school day, and took a pill (having never experiences muscle relaxers before), and hoo boy, I’m pretty sure my last classes of the day thought I was drunk/high/both. And no, I should not have driven home.
I’m on a proper migraine medication now, Imitrex. Pretty safe, been on the market for decades, but it comes with some less than awesome side effects (like a lot of meds do). It kicks the pain, but leaves a tightness in my jaw and neck (not exactly painful, just weird), a funky disconnected feeling, and it cranks up my blood pressure a bit. I guess it’s worth it. I’m functional on the medication, and I won’t say the side effects are worse than the migraines, but they aren’t the most pleasant.
Here’s the problem. Every time I take one of those stupid pills, another book pops into my head. If you look at my website, it’s a better than average chance that any given book you see was spawned by that medication. I have no idea why this is. ‘Makes your brain more creative’ is not on the documented list of side effects. This is why I have a backlog of sixteen books in my head. This is why I pray I don’t get migraines, because if I get any more ideas come through, I will be writing until the day I die. I did not intend to take the Sarah Winchester approach to writing, but my cerebrum has apparently decided that’s where we are going.
Hilary