The Leech In Me

Migraines are like leeches. I remember the rotten bloodsuckers in the creek beds of Pennsylvania (we call a creek a crick in Pennsylvania). The chubby, gray slugs latch on to you between your toes and silently drink your blood. Often, leeches don't hurt you, so you don't realize that you're its new host until you come to shore to grab a towel and sit in the sun to dry off naturally. They swell up like plump grapes until you, or your Mom (because you're screaming) pull them off and cast them away in the mud.

When migraines start (for me, at least) they can simply be a mood shift or a visual change. Sometimes, I become irritatable, but without an obvious provocation. The migraine begins to interfere with my cognitive processes and I become forgetful, or distant. Sometimes I feel like I want to cry. I'm not the type to cry easily, so this migraine symptom alerts me that "something wicked this way comes."

That Leech grabbed on yesterday morning and hasn't let me go. My night was restless and exhausting. My bed became a wrestling mat. One dog and my cat took turns interrupting my sleep. By 6:10 am, Jeff got up to let the dogs out and feed them and Newt. Still, I lay unable to sleep and I considered it pointless, by that point, to try.

I knew I'd be calling the work call call-off line. Thank God (for the fourth time this year) for FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) that protects my job for my protected medical condition. January, March, April, and now, May, I've needed to call off one day each month because of a migraine.

I called both the work call-off phone line and the FMLA reporting line at 7:00 a.m. I informed Jeff I was not logging in to work, then I lay back down in bed to try to sleep with my light-blocking eye mask in place (which I paid way too much for off the internet but would do it again because the Leech is vicious regarding light).

I sometimes feel like a vampire with a beautiful sunny day upon me and curtains drawn to blacken my space.

I was roused from my bed by a phone call from my neurologist informing me that there is an issue (again) in filling the Botox script that the doctor needs to be shipped to their office for my June 2nd injections.

I rolled my pain-riddled bed head out of bed, made the bed (habits die hard), and commenced with an hour and a half of frustrating calls to my insurance compang and specialty drug pharmacy customer service lines to try to resolve the big question: Which pharmacy should fulfill my script so it gets delivered, and paid for on time? I was left with a promise that I will get a phone call from the current specialty pharmacy who received the second script.

The Leech persists. I don't have the answer to the question that I sought so diligently to answer and I wait to see if the Excedrin and a low-dose muscle relaxer will push this Leech away. My goal is to get up for work in the morning.

Photos of Inara were taken today with my Samung Galaxy Note S22 Ultra Plus. She was unsettled all day because her sister, Rabbit, went to the vet for a leg injury she experienced the day before yesterday.

Thank you for reading 📚 ❤️.

This is my five-minute freewrite
using prompt bed head by @felt.buzz. I challenge you to join the freewrite @daily.prompt challenge and add @freewritehouse for regular contests!

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