Head Case

Back during the summer of '04, I began getting migraines. Horrible, painful, paralyzing migraines. I had a prescription for a migraine medication that did nothing. Thankfully, I quickly discovered Excedrin and had never had to deal with a full-fledged migraine again. Pop two Excedrin and my headache would be done in less than 20 minutes. 

This was all true until last week. Once afternoon last week I had to leave work early because of a migraine. It was after a morning excursion with our entire staff that I began to feel a headache coming on. When I got back to the office, I immediately took two pills and chugged a diet coke. Usually the prefect recipe.

Fifteen minutes later I only felt worse. My head was pounding and the slice of pizza I ate for lunch was not sitting well. I needed to lie down. I went down to the nurse (yes, we have a nurse) to lay down in the resting room. After twenty minutes I got kicked out because someone had booked the resting room (seriously?!) and still didn't feel any better. 

I got back to my desk and my coworkers said I should just go home. But I couldn't, I thought. I'd done the same thing as everyone else that morning, everyone else was tired, everyone else just wanted to go home. I could suck it up. I tried and tired and tried to focus and get some work done but the headache only got worse. 

It wasn't until I was gchatting with WG2, telling her how awful I felt, and said to me sternly "You should really go home right now" that I caved and asked my boss if I could leave. Usually I'm the one telling WG2 how to take care of herself so what the roles are reversed, I listen.

On my way home, I was shaking in the cab and trying not to get sick. It was that bad. I barely made into my apartment before getting sick. I dove into my bed and all I could feel, apart from my head throbbing, was guilt about not being at work. 

In my short career I've barely called in sick or left work early. But whenever I do, all I feel is guilt. I've always been legitimately sick, I haven't lied about it but I always feel like I am. Maybe it's just my Catholic guilt kicking in but I shouldn't feel bad about going home or not going in at all when I'm literally about to vomit, right?

I finally fell asleep but still woke up with the migraine. Two more Excedrin and another nap later I finally felt back to normal.