Migraines have their say

Migraines have their say
By Teri Ellen Cross Davis

    Whitney cottage, Hermitage Artist Retreat

You could write about the windows
all nine of them. You could write about

the gulf, red tide strangling Florida’s
shore, the opaque eyes of dead fish

caught in the algal bloom. You could write
about the sky—long as a yawn, sky blue

chasing cerulean away, stretched wisps
of white determined to be the canvas

for another sunset showstopper. But the body
has its own narrative in mind. Neurons hustling

pain blank out any page. No writing can be done
when an electric snare corrals the brain. No ear

searching for song while one temple pulses
an arrhythmic lament. Mercifully there’s triptan,

a black curtain over this inflammatory act. Strike
through today, uncap the pen again tomorrow.

About this Poem

“I was diagnosed with migraines at thirteen. Before the breakthrough of triptans for treatment, I had to lie down for roughly three days in darkness with an ice pack. Now, with medication, when a migraine arrives, I only lose half a day to a full day to the pain. To have a migraine while attending an artist’s retreat felt like a special kind of theft of the time I had arranged away from work and family. I wanted to capture the tension between the migraine’s will and my own, how I sought to find inspiration in a darker moment.”—Teri Ellen Cross Davis

I have my first appointment with a new provider at the Headache Clinic this morning, so I thought this poem would be appropriate. I miss my former provider. She and I had a good relationship, and she seem to really understand my migraines. She listened, talked about stress and outside influences that were affecting the frequency of my migraines, and was not afraid to have me try new treatments. I thanked her one time for never giving up on trying to relieve my chronic migraines. She said that migraine treatments were a lot of trial and error. What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. It was all about finding the right combination. I really hate that she moved away, and I have been without a provider there since October. 

I hope I like this new provider. I like the two nurse practitioners who have been administrating my Botox treatments, and I hope I will be able to say the same for this new provider. I seem to have finally found a treatment plan that is working fairly well, so I hope I’m kept on the same regimen as I have been on for the past six months. The Botox plus the Qulipta seem to be help as a daily preventive medication and Anaprox, naratriptan, and/or hydroxyzine (the combination changes according to the severity of the migraine) usually help for acute/abortive treatments of individual migraines.

About the Poet

Teri Ellen Cross Davis is a Black American poet and the author of a more perfect Union (Mad Creek Books, 2021), winner of the Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and Haint (Gival Press, 2016), winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She was a Cave Canem Fellow and currently works for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.