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Knowing what to rage against

January 17th, 2008

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  Dylan Thomas

What’s important is to know what to rage against. How do I fight the good fight, and not the losing battle? It does me no good to fight the fact of my disease – where my fight is best placed is in finding help for myself and others, learning more, educating more, fighting to live a good life. But I forget that, frequently. I’m sure you never do that – I must be the only one who gets angry at this stupid disease!

Tuesday night I felt the steel band tighten around my temples. The gentle light behind the stained glass shade began to drill unbearably into my eyeballs. Dinner was cooked and eaten, homework done or well underway. My plan for the evening involved chatting with my husband, paying bills, loading the dishwasher, some reading. Nothing ambitious or exciting. My plan did not involve a migraine.

I laid my head on Danny’s chest. “Another one?” he asked. I nodded. “Why don’t you go upstairs?” “I will,” I said, “I’ll just try and load the dishwasher.” (Fighting the disease.) “Don’t overdo it,” he said. So I went into the kitchen, and put a plate, a glass, a fork into the dishwasher, bending slightly. The pain gathered over my right eyebrow for its opening move – a faint whack. “Okay, that’s enough!” I said, and laughed a little. (Acceptance.)

So I went upstairs, turned the lights low in the bedroom and settled in. The pounding was slowly starting, so I took my Imitrex. It was 8:30 at night. I could have gone to sleep. I could have read a little and gone to sleep. But I was mad. I was downright disgusted. I wanted to be entertained. I turned on the tv. The flickering screen bothered me, but the pain never got intense enough for me to back down. I stayed up until 11:30, watching a movie I wasn’t even enjoying. I had to keep the sound low to protect my head. I had to mute the commercials and avert my eyes from them. At 11:30 the migraine began to break through the imitrex. I went to sleep.

I woke exhausted at 6 in the morning, on insufficient sleep, to the kitchen fill of dishes. My son was grumpy and didn’t want to get up. I was the world’s most put-upon human being. I plunged my hands into the greasy dishwater, yelled at my son, and cried. My head was tight, threatening another round. But I pulled myself together, made the kids breakfast, got the dishwasher running, the kids out to the bus, checked my work schedule and went back to bed for an hour. I got up and went to work – realizing that it wasn’t the kids or the dishes or even the migraine I was mad at, it was me, my own self, for not taking care of me.

Acceptance is not giving up. Acceptance is going with the flow, with the grain, in the groove. Acceptance is the feet on the ground. Inspiration, striving, creation, possibility is the arms reaching for the sky. Let me have my feet on the ground and my arms up to the sky. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Viva la difference!
– Megan

Reaching for Serenity

Tags: acceptance, anger, Dylan Thomas, imitrex, migraine, rage against the dying of the light, serenity prayer
Posted in Managing, Musings | Comments (2)