The Vapours

I suffered a migraine yesterday. All right, I over-egging the situation somewhat. I was on the foot-slopes of migraine. The initial symptoms didn't make it to maturity. I dodged a bullet there, I you tell.

For those who've never been afflicted, it's a nightmare - absolutely debilitating. For me, it begins with an inability to see properly. I can see. My brain just can't make sense of the picture. Firstly, I'm unable to read, and quickly thereafter I lose depth and finally I develop a kind of tunnel vision. The next stage is paisley visual hallucinations. By now, I need to get home because stage three is photo-phobia - a hugely popular and now slightly passé migraine symptom. The final iteration involves a stupefying headache, right down the centre of the noggin. This is sometimes accompanied by nausea.

I used to get migraines regularly in my late teens, and then, as suddenly as they'd entered my life, they withdrew. I haven't had a sniff of a problem for nigh-on twenty years. The keen amateur mathematicians among you will be a able age me from the above facts. Yesterday really put the wind up me, I'm unafraid to admit. What surprised about the whole episode was how phlegmatic I was as a youngster about the whole thing.

I remember getting my first one. I quickly and accurately assessed my own symptoms as they unfolded. And then I just sat it out. Had yesterday's been my first migraine, I'd have been convinced I was dying. Absolutely convinced.

It's not unlike a trip, the migraine. I mean a trip in the "wow, man" sense - not four hours in Whitstable. Luckily, no-one's felt moved to record a psychedelic album rendering the experience. If they had, it would sound like someone feeding a chalk goat through a slate mincer.