'Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.' – Joseph Campbell

Part of any chronic illness is adjusting your self-image to the new normal. I've finally come to terms with being someone who needs to monitor their diet, sleep and stress; who will need to take medication for life; and who will have to adjust work and social commitments at the whim of the migraines.

Now I've been told by my physio that I need to accept that I'm unlikely to ever be completely pain-free (in my hip). This is devastating. That's meant that this weekend I've been adjusting my self-concept to someone who has health problemS [plural!]. I keep saying to myself in the back of my mind: I'm sickly (the opposite of healthy).

Couch Potato by Graela (Flikr)

This prognosis means that I won't be able to be as active as I want to be. I'll have to let my tennis membership lapse. I won't get into running, regardless of how perfect our local park is for running. I'll have to find low impact exercise to do: weekend hikes will be weekend walks, tennis will be tai chi, and kickboxing will be kayaking. It's easier to accept the activities that will be curtailed if I think about other things that I can do. That way I don't believe the pessimistic little voice in my head that says that I'll be a fat lump of a couch potato because I can't exercise. I'll prove it wrong!

'The migraine is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' – Paradise Lost by John Milton)

Yesterday was a good day for me migraine-wise, even though I had one. It was prophesied from the moment I woke up by that cruel trick of the migraine: feeling great. This is a new symptom that I didn't know about until my chiropractor pointed it out a few months ago. Before many of my migraines hit, I feel manic, like I can do anything, totally unstoppable. I think it's sadistically ironic that this euphoric feeling comes before all hell breaks loose brain-wise. I'm slowly learning to tell the difference between feeling unnaturally wonderful and feeling normally healthy. I missed the signal yesterday, but the bonus was that I enjoyed a day out and about with my husband on a mini-roadtrip.

Before we left, I spent some time on Huffington Post researching news about migraines, watching interviews with fellow migraineurs and reading about surprising triggers. This was unexpectedly useful. The ladies in the interview, particularly Nancy Girvin, told similar stories to mine. I don't like to wallow and I'm naturally optimistic, but this reminded me that sometimes it is good to commiserate. None of my friends or family experience chronic migraines. They are wonderfully sympathetic and tolerant when I get one, but it's not the same as listening or talking to someone who goes through them.

On Huffington Post I also found an article about '10 Surprising Culprits'. I don't know why, but I compulsively read these types of lists of triggers. Maybe I'm searching for the something I'm missing that I could avoid to be miraculously cured. (Did I mention I'm an unrealistic optimist?) Several of the items of the Huffington Post list validated triggers I already knew for myself, but have never seen mentioned anywhere else. It was nice to have my wheat allergy validated (first time ever). Unfortunately the other triggers mentioned were unavoidables: rain (I've known for a while that stormy weather makes me more prone to migraines), oestrogen (I like being a woman) and other people's strong perfume or loud noises (makes sense, I will deal with this later).

To cap off my great day of driving and discoveries, I got a migraine. I was making dinner and some of the cauliflower fell out of my hand on the way to the pot. Then the onions leapt off the counter. Next I noticed that I felt like I was losing my mind. I think I tell myself that when I feel the weird migraine disassociation coming on. At that point I took a Maxalt wafer. Afterwards, I felt so calm, mindful and at peace. In the new year I'll have to see if I can get similar positive effects without the pharmaceuticals.