The Headache
By Charles Kraus
You outgrow a lot of things -- shoes, shirts, old friends, philosophies, and in my case, severe headaches. The migraines left me when I was in my 50s. Until then, I 'managed' them. They were extreme, massive affairs that caused my head to magnify sounds and bright lights so the stimulants pulsated add nauseam, and boy did they add nauseam, plus room spins, motion sickness, eye socket pressure, the distinct feeling that my brain was bulging and about to burst. Hey, if you are going to have a headache, why not go for the gold?
I’m not certain when I hosted my first migraine, but recall that by the age of four, my parents were regularly secluding me under dad’s old Merchant Marine scarf, one of those black/blue kerchiefs sailors roll into long ties that circle the neck and knot loosely at mid chest. In my case, they unfurled it and covered my head. The family made longish night drives to various social and cultural events, and if/when I complained about the relentless, whirling lights, especially those projected by oncoming vehicles directly into my eyeballs, the cloth would be placed over my head to protect me from the enemy and to keep me from vomiting all over the back seat.
Immediately prior to a full blown episode, I experienced the inkling. The opening signs, the precursors, which felt almost like intuition, like hints or submerged shadowy indications that no good was coming my way. And then, of course, no good arrived.
If my attack occurred at home, I would immediately take to bed, sleeping for hours. Sleep was the only successful remedy. As a youngster, I recall waking late in the evening, many of them, feeling better, and mighty hungry. My mother was on hand to cook up plates of scrambled eggs and toast. “Quiet food,” she called it.
As I got older, I began to notice that in addition to random occurrences, headaches materialized when I confronted stressful situations; also, oddly, they seemed to be triggered by Saturday mornings. At least, Saturday mornings appeared to be a proximate cause. During my teen years, I had regularly scheduled “Saturday” attacks. You could count on them. You could bet on them.
I attributed this to my desire to sleep late, a Saturday ritual for most teens. If I forced myself to get up at seven or whatever my normal weekday reveille required, I would not be greeted by unbearable pain. But it was Saturday. The rest of my body wanted a little extra sleep. The rest of my body negotiated with my head. Get up. Stay down. Get up, I tell you. No, we're tired!
My parents never took me for a medical evaluation. Having headaches was just part of who I was, a kid with a hurting head.
As headaches came and went, a stress component affixed itself to their logarithm. I recall specifically that the day I entered each of the two boarding schools I attended, I had a migraine. My first day of college, I had another. The day I reported for duty on the USS Fulton, I had a doozy, one that was so bad, it took me hours, HOURS!, to find the damn ship. It was tied up in an unusual location, but a submarine tender is one hell of humungous floating department store, and difficult to hide.
In 1964, during my freshman year at Emerson College, I'd registered for a speed reading course. Shortly before the first class, my head happened to explode. Shards of pain marched around inside my mind creating dizzying, stabbing shock waves. Dedicated student that I was, I showed up for Speed Reading 101. The instructor gave us a test to determine our baseline reading speeds. This was not the best use of my time. Reading anything was impossible; testing my speed and/or comprehension was a fool’s errand. I put a few marks on the answer sheet, kept myself from throwing up, and hurried back to my dorm at the end of the hour.
Many years later, I ran into an Emerson student who told me I was famous, at least in Speed Reading 101. How so? Well, it seems that I attended enough of the class meetings to have picked up the gist of this reading technique, and by the last session, when our words-per-minute were again put to the test, I'd fared reasonably well. I was reading at about the same speed as most of my fellow classmates. But, because I'd done so poorly on the initial test, my improvement appeared to be utterly astounding. And so, the instructor used me as an example of the potential gains a student could make if he put his mind to it, as Kraus had done!
What helped? The outside air stabilized. It seemed to have an effect similar to what a mentholated throat lozenge did to a sore throat. Action, particularly walking, kept me one step beyond the stalking pain. By far the most successful elixir, foe to colds, body aches, sadness, and massive migraines, was to take to the stage and perform my little comedy magic show. The headache usually returned after the star turn, but not necessarily.
And then there was the mystery cure, a relief so startling and unexpected, I still think of it as my one true religious experience. While studying at school in Chicago, my lodging was the Lawrence Avenue Hotel. I had a small, dark “efficiency” apartment. Just about everything folded up or was built into the walls; everything except the bed. On schedule each Saturday morning, my “Saturday” headache was there to greet me. One episode persisted well into the night. I remained under the covers as long as I could, but eventually my stupor’s protective clout wore thin. I was done sleeping. Though I knew walking around in the out of doors reduced the pain, it was a bitter Chicago winter, and subjecting myself to the harsh temperatures and fierce winds was not a pleasant thought. Still, it was my last best hope.
Emerging from the hotel, I felt immediate relief. Unfortunately, as soon as I stopped walking, the headache resumed. And so, I walked and walked through the absolute cold. I trudged the snows, consuming miles of Chicago's north end. Hours passed. Again and again, as soon as I halted, the pain reignited. By one in the morning, I'd traveled from Lawrence Avenue all the way into the Loop. Tired, half frozen, and completely upset, I stopped to examine newspapers at an all-night kiosk. What the hell, I requested the Sunday paper. The proprietor folded the rather bulky Tribune in half and without indicating his intent, thrust it skyward, ramming it into my left arm pit. It hit the target with accelerated, high priority delivery. Wam! My massive, pounding, migraine vanished. Disappeared. Went away. Evaporated. Tribune received, headache gone. Try as I might, I was never able to replicate the result though I attempted to do so on numerous occasions.
Many years later, in 1975 to be specific -- I am absolutely certain of the year -- Linda was pregnant with our first child, Rebecca. It was a difficult pregnancy and the doctors prescribed various concoctions to control her extreme discomfort. One day I found myself experiencing a particularly strong migraine. In desperation, I perused the medicine cabinet, hoping to find something, anything that might bring a touch of relief. There on the self was a bottle of Fiorinal, a drug evidently used to help pregnant women unravel the knots that formed in their heads. If it was safe enough for prenatal use, it was certainly safe enough for me.
Bingo. Light the lights. Ring the bells. Within an hour, the catastrophic cluster-bomb war in my head transformed into a casual picnic. I’d found the cure! Oh, there was still the occasional stubborn attach that attempted to overpower MY Fiorinal prescription, but that just meant an extra ten minutes of discomfort.
And then, the strangest thing happened. Time passed. One day, I opened the medicine cabinet looking for some tooth paste. I spotted my bottle of super-duper foolproof God given Fiorinal, a full container. An unused container. An unnecessary container.
