Monday, February 02, 2009

On Headaches

I am not a great sufferer, by any means. For me the greatest physical suffering is the migraine. In comparison to what many people suffer, that is, perhaps, something at which one might chuckle. Yet most of the pain I experience, a fractured foot, a bad laceration, or a hurt back can be set aside while I read a book or pray or write. But a terrible headache obscures all of that, it cuts me off from how I naturally function. It torments me because no matter what I desire to do, the pressure is too great to focus, to be faithful. I can't think. I don't know how to find peace there. In the greatest of such pain, I would be a haggler, willing to give most anything for relief. I recall a fever of 105°, while alone in my house - it might compare in its totality of bodily misery. Though in a fever I can find respite in sleep. Often, a headache isn't so gracious.

I wonder at times if the Good Lord sent me headaches for this reason: Too thorny for me to untangle, for me to ignore. Absolutely interruptive.

I don't know what it is to suffer great physical pain, such as that which accompanies serious diseases and the treatments of such. Honestly, I don't want to. But for me, now, anything is better than a headache. Break my arm, bust my nose, kick me in the shin - just don't send a low pressure front my way.

1 comment:

Hope said...

I feel for you.My husband gets migraines. I think I would rather have any other kind of pain than a migraine when I see how it affects him. They really do demand attention, don't they. A person can't think straight otherwise.