I want my life back.

There was a time when I got a maximum of four migraines each year and I thought I had it bad. When the blurry vision would set in, I would cry just because I was getting a migraine! Now, I would give anything - ANYTHING! Just to go back to getting four or even five/six migraines each year. I could live with that, knowing that it would be one hundred - no, two hundred times better than my current situation.

The way I’m talking now, you would think it was decades ago since things changed but in fact, it is only ten months, although it does feel like decades!

It all changed in July 2012 and started with a head cold. Which turned into a vomiting bug. Which finally would turn into a migraine, that would cause me to be in and out of hospital for a total of seven weeks. But even after all that time spent in hospital, although greatly reduced, my pain was still at a constant five out of ten.

Of course, the main problem was something that couldn’t be helped - sensitivity to light. I got an appointment with an ophthalmologist and he gave me tinted glasses to help me function until the light sensitivity would go away. Ten months later I am still wearing the same pair of tinted glasses and haven’t even been able to get a lighter tint because the photophobia is still as bad as ever. I still get at least one headache per week even though I am on preventatives three times a day. The severity isn’t as bad but that is probably because I am so careful and paranoid about getting the really painful ten out of ten migraines.

So now, I wish every day for the migraines I used to get, where I was fine most of the time and didn’t have to walk around indoors wearing tinted glasses 24/7. They were more severe than what I get now but at least I knew that they would be over after 3-4 days. At least I was still able to have a social life and do well in school. Now, in college, I worry that I may have failed my second semester because I missed so many tutorials and essays that were due.

When will I get my life back?