A kaleidoscope of images is rushing through my aching head,as if the accident happened only yesterday. The ambulance siren. Being rushedinto surgery. Waking up in intensive care, wondering where I was...shouting in my confusion at a poor nurse and insisting I had to get up rightnow and go to meet someone. Getting almost hysterical when I asked her the timeand she told me it was nearly six in the evening and I realised that almost twenty-fourhours had passed since the accident.
Logan would have been there, at the top of the clocktower, waiting for me!
What did he think when I didn’t show up? He probably assumedI’d had second thoughts, which was so far from the truth. I needed to see him! Ineeded to go to the Swan Hotel and find him... I needed toexplain what had happened!
I pushed back the white hospital sheet and tried to scrambleout of bed, but I was stopped, not by the horrified nurse, but by a suddensearing pain slicing through my head. Overcome by nausea, I fell back againstthe pillows with a groan. That’s when I knew I wouldn’t be getting out of myhospital bed any time soon.
Later, I discovered that when I leapt off the wall to helpLila, my phone had smashed, which meant I couldn’t even text Logan to explainI’d had an accident.
Lying here now, in my bed at home almost two months later, I’mstill haunted by this.
It was cruelly ironic... like real lifewas echoing the plot of my favourite movie. Logan knew me when I was bright andconfident and full of fun, but now I felt like a shadow of the person I oncewas.
I’d never want Logan to see me like this...
I raise myself very slowly and gingerly to a sittingposition, touching my right temple with dread to test what kind of a day it’sgoing to be. But as I breathe in and out very slowly, a feeling of relieffilters down through my shoulders. No searing pain this morning. My skull justfeels a little bruised and battered, as if a gang of miniature skate-boardershave been using the inside of my head as a practice ground.
I swing my legs out of bed, grab my dressing gown and leavethe bedroom, swallowing down the bitter taste in my mouth as I pass the deskwhere I used to write. My laptop gathers dust along with the furniture now. I’veopened it only once in the weeks since I arrived back from hospital, and thatwas such a disaster that I swore I wouldn’t repeat. So it just lies there onthe desk now, looking useless.
Just like I feel.
I’m full of fear these days.
And it’s not just that I’m frightened I’ll never be able towrite again. (The doctors are hopeful the physical trauma to my brain willsettle down eventually.)
I seem to be scared oflife, in a way that I’ve neverbeen before.
Since the head injury, every little stress – physical ormental – seems to swell into an insurmountable obstacle. My life seems to bedogged by fear now, keeping me confined to the house and contributing to the constant,debilitating migraine attacks.
I’m new to migraine.
Before, I very rarely had a headache, and when I did, acouple of painkillers sorted it out in no time. I always thought migraines weresimply extra-bothersome headaches. But since the accident, I’ve discovered howtruly ignorant I was of the effects migraine can have on your life...of the toll they can take on your very sanity.
The first time it happened – when I woke up a few morningsafter arriving home – the pressure and the pain in my head was so intense, I panicked,thinking another blood vessel must have ruptured in my brain. The pain was likenothing I’d ever experienced. It was searing and shocking in its relentlessness.It felt as if someone had taken a drill, held it to my temple and switched iton.
It came on fast that first time, and all I could do was liethere in excruciating agony, wondering what was happening to me. The glare fromthe window was piercing my eyes and making me feel sick. And when I finallydragged myself up to call out for Dad, I had to sprint to the bathroom, gettingthere just in time.
Dad phoned for help and an ambulance whizzed me straightback to the hospital, where they eventually diagnosed migraine. Apparently, itwas common after a head injury.
It was a relief, of course. And returning home, feelingspaced out on the powerful pain relief they gave me, I told myself that if itwas just a migraine, I could cope. After all, it could have been a whole lot worse.
But now, with the attacks coming regularly, the worst ofthem lasting for three whole days, my relief that it was ‘just’ a migraine has vanished.
At first, I did what the doctors told me and tried toeliminate as much stress from my life as I could. It wasn’t easy but I wasdetermined migraine wasnotgoing to beat me. I had a book to finishwriting – I needed to meet the competition deadline by the middle of May – andtime was slipping away. On one of my ‘good days’, I sat down at my laptop towrite. But it was no use. Within twenty minutes of trying to concentrate, myhead had started to throb and I knew I needed to heed the warning sign and stop...take my migraine medication and hope I could stop a full-blown attack in itstracks. It was clear that the concentration required to write wasn’t good forme in my current condition.
So I had to give up.
Panic set in. What if I missed the deadline for handover ofthe full manuscript? What if these migraines prevented me fromeverfinishing my book?
I lay there, knowing that stressing about it would more thanlikely bring on another migraine attack, but seemingly unable to stop my mindgoing round and round in feverish circles, like a hamster on a wheel. I knew I neededto take control of my condition somehow, otherwise I was in danger of missingout on the most amazing opportunity I was ever likely to get.
So I researched obsessively online, determined to discovereverything there was to know about migraine – specifically ways to beat it.
I did deep breathing exercises and listened to soothingmeditation music to calm my head down, and I cut out chocolate and cheese and awhole list of other foods because I’d read they could be triggers. And for awhile, it seemed to be working. The migraines abated in strength and duration.I still had them frequently, but I now had the tools to cope a little better. Iknew that I had to take a pill at the first sign of a throbbing at my temple ora stiff neck. Sometimes, this would stop the migraine in its tracks and I’d beeuphoric to think I’d beaten it.
I tried hard not to think about Logan. But lying in bed forhours on end, I tortured myself constantly with ‘what-ifs’. Many times, Idecided I’d call the Swan Hotel from the landline and try and track him down.But I chickened out every time. What if he wanted to see me? I couldn’t lethim. I was a mess, both physically and mentally.
I was no longer the girl he first met...
