The Mathematics of a Migraine

I suffer from migraines.
That means that my family also suffers from migraines.
There is no easy way around that fact. When you have a member of the family that is nearly incapacitated with pain, everyone in the family is affected no matter who the person is. If the affected person happens to be a parent, the effect is multiplied exponentially.
I am not alone in this world of migraines, nor am I special. This just happens to be one facet of how I have to stitch my life together. Lord knows that there are people out there who have worse migraines than I do, migraines that hit harder, last longer, and come more often. But I do get them, and they have a powerful enough kick to leave me a stumbling, huddling, weeping mess sometimes.
I am just coming out from under one and I was thinking about how this one particular headache has affected my life, and it seems that one can begin to attach mathematical statements to the hours of pain...
I just spent 4 days in pain with this last one. So...that is about....

• 96 hours
• 400 mg of Imitrex
• 2000 mg (or more) of Ibuprofen
• 1300 mg of Tylenol
• 6 capsules of Fiorinal
• 6 naps (yes some days had more than one nap), aka retreating to a dark and quiet room in a feeble attempt to waylay the light and sound sensitivity.
• 1 near syncopal episode
• 2 missed board games with the kids
• 1 missed game of epic hide and seek
• 2 missed chances of being the Bad Guy in, what seemed to be, a very interesting game of Time Thievery.
• 2 missed showers
• 3 nights of missing other meds
• 2 major episodes of self pity complete with crying and moaning
• 1 husband left to do the job of two parents
• 2 children left with a hallow cringing husk of a mother

These aren't just headaches. This is not something that skims off of the daily lives of my kids. Every morning when I get Liam from bed, he looks at me, makes the sign for pain and then gently rubs the side of my head with his warm little hands. He's asking me if my head hurts and that will tell him how his day will go. This thing affects my kids, how can it not?
Sometimes I have a migraine that I can kind of work around, I just grin and bear it and after the kids are in bed, I collapse and breathe deep and medicate myself. Sometimes, I have times when they hit so hard and so fast that I can only gasp and run for my dark bedroom and hope that Les can pick up the slack. Sometimes I lie and say that I'm fine and just suck it up if I can, because I get sick to death of dealing with this sort of math.

I only medicate when I can no longer hold up under the pain and then I medicate very conservatively. (yes the above is very conservative). I hate the side effects and the hangovers from the meds almost as much as I hate hurting, and to be honest, nothing ever really takes them away, they just get a bit far off enough that you can sleep for a bit.

So that's it. These migraines are here and they are woven into the fabric of our family, no matter my opinion on the subject.