Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Stephanie Doesn't Live Here Anymore

I'm in quite a difficult bind at the moment. My new medication has kept me migraine free for six days now (a record - I haven't gone that long without one in ages). Unfortunately, the side effects are so miserable that they make the cure as bad as the ailment. I may not be in pain, but I possibly in something worse. Every day now is a seemingly endless battle for consciousness. I am dizzy, lethargic, queasy, at times incoherent . . . ug. It feels like I am swimming through endless curtains, inside a very long tunnel. I have to fight to create understandable sentences when I speak or write, and reading is a feat that takes ten times the effort. I read a sentence, forget what I just read, then have to read it again.

Yesterday I couldn't even make it to class. I kept falling asleep while trying to prepare, then finally gave up and sent my papers with my roommate. Today I accepted her offer of a ride to campus, realizing that I am in no condition to drive. Sheesh, I am not even in a fit condition to walk! Or sit! Or type (I keep making typos and then having to go back and fix them)!

I've opted to give myself three weeks to adjust to these new medications. If by then I still have these horrible side effects, I'm going to have to make a tough choice: multiple massive migraines every week or life inside a drugged stupor?

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"Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!"

~Walt Whitman, "Passage to India"