Next stop on the migraine trail was, at the recommendation of the neurologist, a visit to an opthal-neurologist who declared my optic nerves were fine. He was a busy doctor of stature, serious, maybe too serious. I wanted him to smile, to make light of it all, to tell me he had the key. He didn’t. No smile, no key. A healthy optic nerve is a good thing, we know that. So the migraine story continues and hits the wall.

There are two kinds of ocular migraines going on and there is from what I can see, read, learn about: NO CURE. I get retinal spasm and brain spasm. They, I am told, won’t kill me but they annoy the crap out of me.

These types of headaches for ME are not painful. Not like the ones I had since childhood where I’d be the kid crying at my seat in school and constantly losing my lunch or non-breakfast. No, no pain like the ones I had while on the job over thirty years, where I would take six Extra Strength Bufferin a day most days.

The typical visual disturbance: a black C-shape form facing in the direction of its choice, replete with gold, shimmering zig-zags.

For me, migraine means my vision is disturbed. Strange colors and shapes take over and shimmer. One time I lost my vision completely for about twenty minutes. The rest of the time I think I am fine and out of no where there is a blind spot which grows. It usually resolves in a half hour, sometimes less. Sometimes the “episodes” piggyback: one will be ready to resolve and another will start. Once day I had five. Some days I have none. On those days I wonder if I did anything right or different to have a “normal” day.

These “episodes” originated during a very stressful time in my life. But I don’t feel that level of stress at this time. There is no saying what triggers this but sometimes it is the computer or phone screen–but not consistently. It used to be in the mornings, now it can happen at any time including my sleep, in darkness or light in incandescence or sunlight. I am told it is “brain chemistry.” Maybe my new normal brain chemistry has been created from months of stress.

It is a trick, a damn nasty annoying trick that creates anxiety. I was able to manage several times in the car while driving but there is always the fear that the kind of migraine that literally blinded me would happen again. It is nerve wracking…

The there is Play, the tripod kitty; he has been acting strangely, not eating as ravenously as he is known to, possibly his insides are blocked. He is drinking water which could be a sign of diabetes going awry and he needs to have his glucose checked. In the back of my mind I ask if the cancer from the leg  might have spread; you know how the mind goes wild in the stages of not knowing.

When I got home yesterday from the eye doctor and shopping I was spent. I crashed. Couldn’t muster the strength to get the cat to the vet. He jumped/clawed his way up next to me on the bed and we took a nap. He so RARELY does this. Usually if he is ill or recovering. So I wonder: Who was taking care off whom? He’s been following me around, waiting outside my office door, resting in unusual spots, making me wonder what is going on … maybe he is watching out for me?

At any rate, he has three legs and I have strange ocular episodes that science  in all it’s glory and modernity can’t figure out. We are some team.

You would think that something called a “headache” could be banished or prevented in the year 2014. In my case I am trying to avoid taking a million pills that can worsen the symptoms or cause other symptoms. I get idiopathic vertigo. Who the hell knows where that comes from but just add it to the list.

Maybe it is the Universe trying to explain to me how my aging mother feels. The longer we are here the more we have to contend with and the more we fail to recognize our own bodies, those shelters we have always resided in (and are destined to shed). For now I am settling for two large vials of Botox–about twenty-five bee-sting-like injections to my head and neck, in hopes that the third round will be the charm. Something, something has to work.

All I can do, all we can do, is hope for the best. Grin and bear it. Keep a stiff upper lip. Just keep on going. Just like a three-legged kitty and a ninety-six year old mother.

Just carry on.