It was a rainy Friday but folks in the office were keeping it warm and fuzzy inside with our lovely annual Valentine’s Day potluck.  I mean, look at this spread!

I made the “How deep is your love? 7 layers!” Dip for the office.

I ate more sweets that I’ve eaten any in weeks…in one morning.  The bourbon sauce on the bread pudding was awesome.  But soon after eating that, I started to get a little bit of a headache.  I thought it might be because I didn’t have caffeine today, so I went back to the spread for some chocolate cake.  Chocolate seemed to hold off the headache the rest of the day.  LOL.

As much of the love we had going on in there, workload was overwhelming.  And I didn’t even get close to where I wanted to be.  I originally planned on working a wee little bit late and then grabbing a drink with coworkers, but it turned out everyone had something else going on.  Figure, it was Friday before Valentine’s Day after all.

Might as well, I mean, I didn’t get to leave the office until 7:30 p.m. anyway.

I told Brandon that I would pick up Chinese food from his favorite joint on the way home, and headed out of Downtown.  The minor headache I’ve been nursing all day started to feel a little bit more serious.  I blamed it on the fact that I was hungry.

As the commute home progressed, the magnitude of the headache began to rise.  Brake lights in front of me began to worsen the pain, and any headlight in my rear view mirror seemed super bright I flipped my mirror up the whole way home.  Then music did too so I turned it off.  However my car not having any much of sound proofing, the engine and road noises actually was quite as painful to hear.  By the time I got off the freeway, green light was too much to bear.  I squinted my way to the restaurant.

On my way back, I tasted metal in my mouth.  The pain at this point was like someone stick a hot metal rod behind my right ear, through my right eye ball, and out my forehead at the corner of my right eyebrow.  Every time I passed something brighter than brake lights, the rod twisted in my head, afflicting more pain I had to cry out. At some point, I felt waves of nausea.

An hour after I left Downtown and the saga began, I finally got home. Brandon opened the door and I shoved the bag of food at him and pushed my way into the apartment.

“What’s the matter?!” he asked.

I told him everything that hurt as I made my way to the couch in tears.  Sure it hurt enough to make me cry, but I was so afraid driving in that condition.  Everything I looked at hurt my head. I couldn’t concentrate on the road.  I was scared out of my mind.

Brandon turned off any lights in the room and came over to take my hand.

“Welcome to the land of Migraine,” he said softly and led me to the bedroom with only one candle lit.

He put me in bed, gave me two Tylenols and an ice pack, made me a cup of coffee and had me drank it all, and kissed me where it hurt.  He held me for a while and told me everything would be okay, that I was home safe despite my frightening driving experience.

I am so grateful that he was home and that he knows exactly what to do.  God, I love this man.

I slept for an hour, woke up virtually pain free but just an ache behind my ear, and Brandon by myside.  And I was famish.I stepped outside for dinner I risked my life bringing home.  Haha.

Y’all, that was my first certified migraine.

My mom had it.  My oldest brother had it too.

Actually, he had it so bad when he was still in Virginia, he fainted and ended up in the hospital.  Someone thought he might have had a stroke, it was that bad.  I seemed to remember my mom was about to get on the plane going to back to Thailand from visiting me when we got the news.  She wanted to go see him, but everyone said he should be fine and that she should just head home.  She later told us that she prayed the whole way and made a promise with the Higher Powers that if my brother pulled through, she would give up beef.  It is her pact with Guan Yin, a deity/Buddha of Taoist/Chinese Buddhist belief.  The myth/story is that Guan Yin’s father was reborn as a bull which, with her being Enlightened, she could recognized him as such.  So her believers are either full vegetarian or they don’t eat beef.

Anyway, my brother had his first migraine triggered by stress.  He was fine and she did give up beef for the rest of her life.

Since migraine seems to run in my family, it wasn’t a surprise that I got it too, also triggered by stress.

Thank god we’re about to have any kids. I can’t imagine passing on this affliction to anyone else.  I’m sure mine is probably not as bad as what many others have to suffer through. So please, nobody gives up their beef eating habit for me.

We don’t officially celebrate V-day in this household but we managed to surprise each other here and there.  One year Brandon surprised the hell out of me by showing up with a huge polar bear.  I don’t think there will be any surprises today since I already provided all the excitement last night.

In any case, Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!