Headaches - 5/14/2010

It is well-documented that I am a huge Seinfeld fan. Huge being the operative word here. My fellow Seinfeld aficionados will know that Jerry went without throwing up for 14 years, from 1980 to 1994. His streak ended, as all streaks eventually do, when he ate a black and white cookie that turned into David Duke and Fahrikan in his stomach.

Why am I telling you this is a post about headaches? Well, I had a similar streak end yesterday. When I was in the Air Force I had terrible migraine headaches. They varied in frequency and severity, but the worst ones caused me to remove my gun from the nightstand and put it in my safe. There is no way I could open the lockbox in the throes of a grand mal migraine. Anyone who has suffered severe migraine headaches knows that eating a bullet is a viable option. My migraines contained the following symptoms (fellow sufferers can relate):

I could not tolerate any sound. A whisper sounded like an air raid siren.

I could not tolerate any light. I had to have absolute darkness. The light under the door was as bright as the sun.

Any movement made me dizzy and nauseous. I had to be absolutely still.

I had to be as cold as I could tolerate. I was constantly rotating my pillows to find a cool spot.

If I was with someone, I would have them put as much pressure on my head as they could muster. That pressure offered a small bit of temporary relief. If I was alone, I would take an ice cold rag and push it as hard against my head as I could.

The hospital personnel at Mildenhall AB, my last assignment, would take one look at me staggering in the door and prepare a cold, dark, room and a hypodermic needle filled with some kind of narcotic. This was long before self-treatment was available. My kids can verify how severe both the illness and the treatment were. Once my son, Josh, called me soon after I arrived home from a visit to the hospital and the conversation went something like this:
“Hi dad.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Josh.”
“Josh who?”
“Your son.”
“I don’t have a son.”
“Dad, are you ok,”
“Nope, I have a headache.”
“Oh, ok, talk to you later.”
“Who is this?”
Click.

I retired from the Air Force in late 1992 and had not had a headache of any kind for 17 years. It is pretty obvious that mine were caused by stress. I pretty much lead a stress-free existence now, except for self-induced tension that I will always seem to conjure up. Yesterday, I had a headache. By anyone’s standards that have never experienced a migraine it was a very bad headache. I think it was a sinus headache, definitely not a migraine, but it still broke my streak. It had been so long since I had a headache that it took some time for me to realize that is what was causing me to feel so poorly. When I awoke this morning, it was gone. I did not even have to take anything. Well, my gun is still in my nightstand and my days without a headache are now at one. I should twitter Jerry and find out how his current vomitless streak is progressing.