Head Case

Migraines are usually a bane that attacks women. But I guess I’m just lucky because my husband gets them, too. You might think having to live with a migraine-sufferer was my own fault for marrying him, but he didn’t have them while we were dating. Sweetface’s migraines just didn’t set in until he was 22. And I believe in my heart it was a coincidence that was the year he married me. It may be that he kept migraines at bay with a steady stream of caffeine by drinking Mt. Dew (He had an entire wall of Mt. Dew cans in his dorm room.) Or maybe Sweetface is right and I am a carrier.

The thing about migraines is, it’s kind of like being drunk. Migraines impair judgment such that my husband doesn’t always realize that he’s having them. Just like I can’t tell I’m drunk until I’m dropped off at my door and can’t find my keys. I usually know Sweetface has a migraine if he yells at me for breathing his air. Generally, he’s a pretty congenial person (He has to put up with me, after all). The transformation that overcame Dr. Jekyll wasn’t weird science; I’m sure he was suffering migraines. When my husband has a migraine, everything from his sweet disposition to his countenance changes. His eyelids turn purple. The rest of his face looks like he was hit sharply on the forehead with a two by four. And from the descriptions I’ve heard from my husband the pain can be kind of like that, except it’s constant.

There is a multitude of things that can trigger a migraine. Some migraines are predictable, and hit him when a weather front comes through, or while I’m shoe shopping. But some of his migraines are as unpredictable as the names celebrities foist on their innocent children. For example, I made sweet and sour pork to surprise him on three separate occasions and each time he came home from work with a migraine. It’s one of his favorite meals, but I refuse to make it ever again. Cutting, breading and frying the pork, and chopping the veggies and pineapple and preparing the sauce from scratch is too labor intensive for Sweetface to come home and pass out on the bed.

We combat Sweetface’s migraines with caffeine and over-the-counter painkillers that contain Acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine. He had to give up Mt. Dew because it really wasn’t one of our goals to put our dentist’s children through college. (Not that we don’t like the dentist’s children, they’re very nice kids, I’m sure). So Sweetface has medicinal lattes instead. For a while there he was getting migraine symptoms every time we came within a two-block radius of a Starbucks. As you can imagine he was getting them quite often, until I caught on to his monkey shines and broke down and bought him an espresso maker. Of course, whether it’s really cheaper is probably a close call with all of the cafe accessories, the latte mugs and the many fancy flavored syrups we are now the proud owners of. And he still visits Pam at the Starbucks by work more than he’d ever admit to me. As they say, “He never drinks a second cup at home.” Though, I’ll admit I don’t mind Sweetface visiting the cute barista when he comes home happy—and without a blinding headache.