'Will not a migraine very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?' – Middlemarch by George Eliot

When I was lying in bed last night, in pain, I was thinking about my 'normal' migraines – or what I've grown used for the last 18 months on Topomax. I think migraines have three components: physical, mental and emotional. Usually mine are more mental and emotional: I get dizzy and confused, unable to put a sentence together, inordinately tired and sometimes I get spots or lines in my vision (that's the mental side); and I get depressed, fatalistic and weepy (the emotional). This time it's been mostly physical – lots of head pain, muscle tension and nausea with a little bit of tiredness and confusion.

Since I'm delusional and too analytical for my own good, I began wondering which component I preferred, or was least bad. If I have to get migraines, which symptoms do I want? Stupid, I know. My answer was: none! I want none. Whichever set of symptoms is dominant at the time of questioning, that would be my least preferred, whatever I wasn't experiencing too much I would say wasn't too bad and I could handle. (I.E. for this migraine, I think the emotional stuff's easiest to deal with, then the mental and physical is the most all-consuming of the symptoms. But that's not usually true for me.) This near-sighted version of each migraine is another symptom, I know that. Every migraine I have is the worst one, and never-ending, while I'm in it.