The Year of Living Hopefully

Today is a day of The Cheeks. I’m pretty sure I’ve described this phenomenon before, but here it goes again: Maddie suffers from what we now believe are migraines, but instead of head pain and nausea, it’s all in her face. She describes it as a tingling sensation in her cheeks, but her experience of it is migraine-like in that it’s both intolerable and immobilizing.

After years of puzzled looks and shrugs from both pediatricians and in one case an emergency room doctor, I took her to the neurology center at UCSF where the doctor, a pediatric neurologist, gave a probable diagnosis of migraines. She had never seen migraines manifest in this manner before, but given our family history (I’ve got migraines in spades), and the intensity of the experience, that was the doctor’s best guess. So she prescribed a migraine drug called Maxalt because that’s the one that works best for me. It’s not one hundred percent effective (sometimes it doesn’t work at all), and I also take preventive medication, but it’s the only thing that has EVER worked even a little bit, so it was worth a try.

This morning I managed to get Maddie completely dressed–hat, glove, shoes, the whole business. And I do mean I got her dressed, even applying deodorant to her slightly-hairy (but clean) armpits. But then she just sat there on her bed. I was getting pretty frustrated, but what could I do? So I let her sleep for another ninety minutes (during which I took the dogs for a shortened version of the ride they had expected to go on–yes, I did that!). Then it was time for her to get up so maybe she could make it to second period.

But in the end my efforts were wasted. Her way of managing these situations is especially frustrating because she’ll just be silent. She will keep her eyes closed and say nothing at all. This morning I asked her repeatedly what her plan was without a response. Finally I said, “Are you not going at all?”

“Ding ding ding. You got it.” Finally! Words!

After a few deep breaths, I turned off the light and left her room. No use putting more energy into getting her to school today. I’ve got to be logical in times like this, as much as I can be anyway.

And then a few minutes later there was a knock on my door.

“I have the cheeks,” she lamented. Oh, crap. The Cheeks. She hasn’t had those in months.

I fished out a Maxalt from my own stash and gave it to her. I know she doesn’t like to take it. It’s taken sublingually, which is hard for her because of the chalky texture that just sits in your mouth for a few minutes while the pill dissolves is unpleasant. It’s hard for her to tolerate. And it’s minty, which she hates.

“I know you don’t like it, but just try to suffer through it. It’ll be worth it if the cheeks go away.”

She reluctantly put it in her mouth and for the next couple of minutes cringed and gagged and complained and then finally gave up. Optimistically maybe she ingested half.

And then, “It’s not working!”

“I know, Sweetie. It takes awhile to work. Maybe forty-five minutes.”

“How long has it been?”

“I don’t know. Maybe five minutes.”

“ONLY FIVE MINUTES?”

When you have a migraine, a minute seems like an hour. An hour feels like a day. Usually my goal on a migraine day is just to survive it long enough for bedtime to come.

“Now how long has it been?” she asked again.

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

Ugh.

Finally an hour had passed. “Do you feel better?” I asked.

“A little.”

I would say very little. She still is nearly paralyzed with discomfort. She turned on a movie to take her mind off things. That’s what I do. I’m not sure how much it’s helping.

If only she had taken the whole pill, maybe she would be OK. But maybe not. When I get a migraine, sometimes one Maxalt works. Sometimes I have to take a second one. Often even the second one doesn’t work, in which case I accept that my day is shot and I just go to bed. That’s just how it is. And it stinks.

So today is one of those Maxalt-isn’t-working-there’s-nothing-else-to-be-done kind of days.

I will take good care of my suffering kid and hope tomorrow she’s better. I had a two-week migraine myself not so long ago, during which I vacillated between acceptance and self-pity and back to acceptance. But I’m not fifteen and I don’t have Asperger’s. My hope is that one day the migraines will cease. If that’s not the case, I hope she can figure out how to better manage the misery.